


Voltron: the masquerade bloodlines

by Issa_Crowe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Slow Burn, almost every ship is possible because DRAMA, kidge is probably endgame because i like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issa_Crowe/pseuds/Issa_Crowe
Summary: Katie Holt was not a normal girl, Katie Holt was a girl with many secrets but that was not really special, not among her people at least because everyone was supposed to mantain the masquerade no mater what and that lead to having many secrets. but when her father is offered a new job at Altean entreprises and her family moves to Arus city she will find herself thrown into a city with far more secrets than she could have ever imagined, where many different factions clash for control.sooo i suck at summaries and this is my first story so any feedback is welcome! also yes the title is a word play with Vampire: the masquerade.
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Allura/Keith (Voltron), Allura/Lance (Voltron), Allura/Romelle (Voltron), Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lotor (Voltron), Keith/Pidge | Katie Holt, Matt Holt/Shiro
Comments: 17
Kudos: 14





	1. Moving to a new home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey first chapter, first story ever! i'm new to the fandom and the show is great so i decided to try my hand at making fanfic!
> 
> i apologize for any grammatical error, english is not my first language but i've been studying for a while so hopefully i won't mess up too much.
> 
> any and all feedback is wellcome!

Katie Holt, her friends call her Pidge or they would if she had any, looked outside the car’s window as her father drove them away leaving their hometown behind. Her father, Samuel Holt, was humming happily along some old jazz song playing in the radio while her mom talked to her brother.

Following them was the truck carrying their belongings, looking at it through the rear mirrors was one of the few distractions she had during the trip, and the sun was still high in the sky, so she was not only bored, but also still half asleep and currently trying to turn that into fully asleep, but no matter how hard she tried the constant talk around her kept her awake.

Not being able to sleep and refusing to be part of whatever chat was going on at her side, Katie let her mind wander to the events of the last few days, first her father finished the prototype for a new engine he had been working on, she and her brother decided to test it by strapping it to his bike, of course recording the whole thing, specially the moment when her brother lost control of the bike and it’s now too powerful to control engine and ended up making a whole in the fence, of course the video had been too funny to not post in the internet.

Two days later her father got a call and Altea industries offered him a job, which he of course accepted, the day after he was signing the contract and was told that he would need to move to Arus City for this new job, the next few days the company even helped them find a new house in the city. One day later Katie and her brother were, to the delight of her parents, officially transferred to Altea high, and this morning they packed everything they owned in a truck and left their old town (at arse A.M. she would add).

“Katie, Katie” when she was finally drifting into her dreams she heard her mother’s voice which she decided to ignore and keep her eyes closed until she felt a hand on her ear “Earth to pidge!! Are you alive?!” her brother shouted in her ear. She pushed him away and started rubbing her ear trying to stop the ringing her brother had so kindly gave her.

“No, I’m dead! Now let me sleep”

“Honey, you will screw your sleep schedule if you sleep now, you know it” her mother said from the sit in front of her

“We were talking about your new school, don’t you want to know more about it before going back to sleep?” her father said far too cheerful for the early morning even if he also had bags from lack of sleep under his eyes.

“uhg ok ok” she said as she sat straight in her sit “what was that about the new school?”

“For a start it has an indoor pool, so we may get to swim without fear of burns” Her brother Matt said with a wide smile “been years since we did”

“If only you had any muscle to show off at the pool” she gave Matt a smile before sticking out her tongue.

“The school also makes regular field trips to the facilities both Altea industries and Marmora Innovative, so you may get to see the lab where your father works at” Colleen added.

“I still can’t believe they didn’t get you a job too mom” Katie crossed her arms as she spoke.

“it’s fine, the positions at their labs are filled and my investigation is not really in line with their products, there is no much reason to hire me” her mother explained, eyes focused on the road or well the sky over the road ahead “do you think it will be raining there?”

“We have umbrellas and rain coats, and the house has an automatic garage, we’ll be fine” Samuel quickly reassured her

“Yeah mom, it will be fine, it’s not like some rain will kill us” Matt joked.

The rest of the trip continued in the same manner, they talked, Katie fell asleep and after hours of travel and the back pain that 8 hours of travel in a car will cause you, the car finally stopped. And with the words “And here we are!” coming from her father Katie finally woke up for real.

“Finally!!!” the siblings cheered jumping off the car, or in crawling through the window in Matt’s case “we should have mailed our stuff and taken a flight” she said stretching and feeling the bones of her back pop.

“This way is cheaper” her mother interjected

“Dad now makes enough to buy a new house, I’m sure we can afford it”

“Technically I only make enough to start paying our new house” Sam corrected “and talking about that, what do you think?” he said pointing past her, following his finger Katie’s eyes landed on a wide 2 story building with a modest front and back yard, the entrance had 2 bed of flowers flanking it’s sides, pale green walls and wooden windows completed the place, a nice house, that despise being bigger than her old home, seemed to try to blend with the nature and plants from the yards.

“Loos great” Matt answered before she could

“And wait till you see the rooms, they are way better than the coffins we had back at Kerberos” Samuel stated opening the door and promptly getting out of the way, while Colleen rolled her eyes anticipating what was coming.

Matt gave her a smirk and bolted inside “First comes first served!” he shouted already pass the door “Cheater!!” Katie ran behind him, she was not going to let him take the best room, whichever room that was, while Colleen sighed shaking her head.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a small race and a fight with her brother, fight she won by climbing on his back and pulling his hair, driving him out of the room like a certain rat chef from the movies, Katie had claimed what she had deemed the best room in the house’s second floor, one of the corner rooms with great view of the back yard and positioned in such a way that the sun would only hit it directly during the morning, time where, much to her dismay, she would have been long gone to school.

Now she only needed to make herself at home in the room and the first step was to get the curtains set up over the windows, of course this were not normal curtains but the same thick and heavy curtains used in theatres, they also could be buttoned so there would be no chance of them spreading, why take all this measures? Well, being woken up by the sun hitting her face was a very, very uncomfortable! Experience she refused to go through, in reality she just wanted to avoid the sun as much as possible unless she was wearing her special sunscreen.

Once she was done making her room as sun proof as she could, at least until she could get some blackout film for the windows, Katie focused on unpacking the rest of her stuff, opening the boxes her father so kindly had brought up to her room while she set up the curtains, she looked at their contents: some portraits of their family painted with oil, her cloths (mostly comfy hoodies some shorts and a few skirts) some posters but most importantly all the parts of her computer which she built by herself, with some help from her dad, soon enough she started setting everything up.

Getting her room ready took the better part of the day and the sun had already set by the time she finished setting up her computer and she was feeling way more refreshed and energized with the night coming, once she was done her mother called them all for dinner.

Once she went down to the kitchen she found her family eating pizza and laughing “Pidge come get some Pizza before it gets cold” Matt said once he noticed her, she sat down at the table and looked at the pizza it was split in half one side being peperoni and the other being covered in pineapple. She of course grabbed a slice of pineapple pizza.

“How can you eat that monstrosity?” Matt made a horrified face as he looked at her 

“What? It tashtes good” she answered with her mouth stuffed as her father grabbed a slice of the same kind “shee dad agrees”

“Monsters both of you” her mom deadpanned drinking her soda “how can you destroy a perfectly good pizza like that”

“Let’s not re-start the pizza wars, our marriage was close to never recovering after the last battle” he smiled before turning to the siblings “and talking about monsters are you two creatures of the night ready for tomorrow?”

“Hell yeah! First day of school, first chance to sweep everyone off their feet, gotta work my charm” Matt responded, flicking his hair trying to look like some sort of model

“Matt don’t get suspended on the first day because of harassment, I don’t need to be labelled the weirdo’s sister”

“Just remember classes start at 8 A.M. so don’t stay up late” Colleen reminded them.

“UHHGGG why is it so early?! No sane person would be awake that early!” she yelled earning a laugh from her family.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith and Krolia Kogane’s day started early, as they would wake up at 5 A.M some times 4 A.M. and were usually ready around 6 A.M. one would say they raised with the sun, but it would be more accurate that they would go out with the sun, this meant that Marmora innovative’s security chief and CEO’s bodyguard Antok Gilman’s day starts even earlier as he was supposed to be waiting for them with the limousine as soon as they left their home, this meant waking up every day at 4 A.M. which in all honesty was absolutely dreadful but on the bright side, his husband Ulaz had to wake up just as early since he worked as lady Krolia’s personal assistant (or backup CEO as Krolia would call him when she didn’t feel like filling paperwork).

As lovely as it may be to walk to work together and be able to spend most of their time with each other, it was nothing they could enjoy greatly when both of them ran on 3 hours of sleep and enough coffee to drown an elephant some days, today was one of those days. Last night they both had to review job applications to the company, review some of last year reports and meetings.

They were already outside of the mansion waiting in front of the limousine for their employer and her son and their bodies wanted to sleep more if the moment when both of them opened their mouths in a yawn that would rival a hippopotamus’s.

“I hate Mondays” Antok finally said looking at the gate

“Why? You don’t get to rest any day of the week, shouldn’t you hate all days equally?” his husband retorted.

“You are more tired Mondays and that means no one will keep me awake, so they deserve extra hate” he explained earning a chuckle from Ulaz.

“You do know this is mostly just protocol, you could meet them in a couple of hours at the office if you are tired, and they don’t really need a bodyguard”

“Same could be said about you being here” he responded before fixating his gaze on the door to the mansion “they are here” it was easy to know when the Koganes were approaching, no matter the season or weather, the area around the was always warmer than usual and the warmth would increase the closer they got.

Soon enough the door opened revealing a young man and a mature woman, both sporting well fitted suits though they were of different colours, Keith Kogane a young man of slim but fit complexion, short for his age, of fair skin and dark hair shaped in a mullet, of sharp features and dark eyes that in the right light would reveal themselves to be in reality a dark purple with an unnatural golden tint around them, his suit white and with a red V on his left breast, the uniform used by the staff at Altea high, or well in his case the uniform the students that volunteered to help with the activities of the first day of classes were required to wear.

At his side Krolia Kogane walked in a black suit with purple accents on the sides and the end of the sleeves, the tall woman’s height contrasted with her son’s, her dark hair tied in a ponytail that reached the middle of her shoulder plates, her skin pale like her son’s, her face adorned by two purple lines on her cheeks that complemented her sharp features, unlike her son her eyes were more obviously purple and the bright golden tint around them was easier to notice.

“As punctual as always, I see” Krolia was the first to greet them with a smile, far too chirpy and energetic for the hour “hope you had a good weekend”.

“Good morning you two, you don’t look like you had a lot of rest” Keith continued as he and his mother scowled at them.

“Its fine Madam, we drank enough coffee to keep us up” Ulaz assure them opening the door of the limousine “now should we get going?”

They nodded and made their way inside greeting the driver “good day Alex, could you please avoid the sixth avenue entirely? Not a good road today”

“As you wish madam” the driver answered with a smile as they hit the road.

Ulaz and Antok sat in front of the Koganes as they started to review their schedules for the day, a honestly incredibly boring process that was chipping away at the energy the coffee had given to Antok as he even started to feel his eyes get heavier, event he would never admit nor accept in normal circumstances but this was not a normal circumstance. No matter how hot it got near the Koganes it was never uncomfortable, on the contrary it was as comfortable as sitting bellow a tree shade taking the spring breeze which was horrible if you were trying to stay awake in their presence.

“You two should try to sleep at least you could get some rest until we reach Thaldycon” Krolia said looking at them

“oh there is no need mad-“ Antok was not able to finish his words before he caught a small flash in Krolia’s eyes and by Ulaz’s reaction sitting straight and looking at both Krolia and Keith, he had caught another one in the young man’s eye

“Ulaz please cancel the meeting at 3 p.m. with Hira Hayes and tell her to not worry taking care of her daughter is priority” the woman ordered.

“And please make sure a car is waiting for Mr Martin between seventh and Pine Street his car is not going to be working greatly today” Keith added.

Yeah this was the real reason why both of them were trying to stay awake and were ready to work this early, it was vital to the smooth running of the company that this usually spontaneous and strange changes and orders to be completed as soon as possible. Their trip continued this way for about 20 minutes until they finally got to their first stop, Altea high.

Even when there were still almost 2 hours till the time the school would open its doors to the students the building was a bustling with people running around perfecting the final details for today. As soon as the limousine stopped in front of the main entrance a girl with dark skin and silver hair ran towards them, wearing a uniform similar to the one Keith was using, the biggest chance was a long skirt that replaced the pants and the V on her left breast, that was coloured pink instead of red.

“Keith! Thank the ancestors you are here, I need your help connecting my interface with the new network!” she addressed the younger Kogane as soon as he got out of the car.

“Have a nice day!” Krolia waved goodbye to her son as the car drove off, knowingly leaving her son with the girl who would surely work him to the bone until the other students came. This would be a very interesting first day.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first day of school was important for Allura, well it was important for Altea high and therefore it was important for Allura, the families of many of the students worked for their company as such it was their duty to in return give their children the best education possible, and she would NOT allow the students first impression of the school to be anything less than stellar, and the first step was to get her damn terminal to work!

Her terminal, a small tablet, was supposed to connect with the school’s servers specifically those that had the data about their students as well as some minor other admin permits for stuff like scheduling the use of certain facilities by the students after class, this would allow her to access some of the most…… sensitive information about some of them, this may be a bit of an abuse of power but it was necessary to be able to fulfil the most unique needs of their students.

But this data network wasn’t developed by Altea industries, no it was developed by their allied company Marmora innovative, and this fact was evident in the amount of security the entire system had, Marmora did not mess around when it came to gathering or protecting information and as such when someone tried to connect with their most secure networks just like the one they had kindly donated to the school, it did not allow any mistakes, much less something as basic as when entering the code confusing the letter “o” with the number “0” like Allura had done when she was distracted organizing the other volunteers, and now she was locked out of the system until she “contacted the administrator”.

She could ask Coran for help, he had the admin permits to get her into the system again but he was busy at the moment rehearsing his speech for the new students and she didn’t want to interrupt, she had to admit she was more than happy with the security of the system, she had been trying to get through for the last 15 minutes and she had been blocked every time. Allura was about to give up when she saw a car approach, a limousine she knew very well and she thanked the ancestors for this gift as she ran towards it

“Keith! Thank the ancestors you are here” she greeted him with a hug before saying “I need your help connecting my interface with the new network!” after he returned the hug, Allura then explained the whole situation.

“Ok I think I can give you access, give me a minute” Keith said pulling a tablet from his bag as they walked “I told mom we should allow 2 tries but according to Kolivan it could lead to a ‘security breach’ ” he complained while typing something in his tablet, a few minutes later her own tablet beeped and she could finally connect to the network.

“Marvellous! Now we just need to check that everything is ready and wait” Allura commented reading the information in her tablet “well we will have a few interesting students this year, good thing we resupplied the materials for our special menus at the cafeteria”

“Yeah we will have a bit of everything this year, we better keep our guards up in case someone thinks of starting trouble” he mentioned looking over her shoulder at the files.

“I’ll trust on your eyes to spot them before they do” Allura smiled at him “I’m sure we can keep things running smoothly” she finished patting one of his cheeks “you may even make friends this year” she smirked

“I have friends”

“Kosmo doesn’t count” she laughed as she said.

“What? you don’t count anymore?” Keith said raising an eyebrow.

She giggled “I’m your friend but I shouldn’t be your only friend”

“Not like I need more” He shrugged “I’m more than ok with you and Kosmo”

“Just promise me you will try ok?” she pleaded until Keith let his head down in defeat.

“One week, if I hate everyone after that I’m back to just spending time with you and Kosmo” he said holding one finger up.

“That’s all I ask for” she smiled and stood up “well now, we should go check everything is in order for the student’s arrival”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lance was not having a good morning, his sister stole his mascara, he had to wake up super early to catch the bus to school, it was Veronica’s turn to make breakfast and Lance had forgotten how horrible her cooking was so breakfast mostly tasted like pain, how do you manage to replicate pain in food form? He didn’t know but his sister had managed to do it. The deadly food was eaten and promptly expulsed from his body as soon as he left the apartment, even if the process had left a horrible taste in his mouth, and taken some time, time that he now wanted back as he saw the school bus driving away into the distance.

Now Lance had to run all the way to school on an empty stomach, thank the ancestor he at least had mints to erase the smell from his mouth but that didn’t help him with his other problems, so first he had to sprint his way to school, he had gone to visit the place the day he moved with his sister, so he knew the path he had to take in order to get there. Putting his hands on the ground and getting in a good starting position for his sprint, kicking the ground he was on his way.

He ran through the streets of the city, turning around corners and alleyways, he was making an excellent time or he thought he was, he might even make it on time if only he pushed it a bit more, he just had to cut through the small park just ahead of him, and he could have been right had a small girl with brown hair and pale skin not come running from around the corner, now had this been some romantic comedy book or show, they would have crashed, tumble a bit and fallen into the ground in a compromising situation where their eyes would meet and their love story would begin.

This did not happen, honestly he would have taken your normal crash and fall to the ground on your ass, but that didn’t happen neither, no, they crashed in front of the park, her size made her more like a bump to him so he was promptly sent flying, making a front flip over the girl that fell on her ass, sadly Lance was no acrobat so he did not stick the land, nope, he didn’t even land on his ass, his entire back hit the ground and his momentum made him roll until he was sitting on his rear.

“Watch were you are going you mutt!”

The words snapped Lance off the daze the fall had put him in, mutt? Did she just called him mutt? He paid attention to his nose, the smell coming from the girl, blood, the special kind of bloody smell that accompanied only one kind of creature.

“Oh what is a blood sucker doing here?!” he said looking at the girl who was scowling at him, the girl move forward and put a hand on his mouth causing him to panic.

“Can you be less obvious?! Remember the masquerade” she whispered and Lance calmed down enough for her to free his mouth.

“You started it” Lance retorted annoyed.

“I was far less obvious” she said picking up a bag he supposed she dropped when they crashed “now if you excuse me, I need to get to class” she started walking through the park.

“No way” he said standing and following her “h-hey aside from Altea is there another high school this way?”

“Not as far as I’m aware, wait” she turned looking at him “don’t tell me that you attend Altea”

“Oh ancestors” they both let their heads hang, how much worst could the day get? Lance thought looking down, catching a glance of the girl’s watch, which said they had 3 minutes to get there

“We are late!!!” he said running ahead of the girl, who caught up surprisingly fast.

They ran like their lives depended on it, and in a way his did, Veronica would end him if he was late for his first day of school. The building soon came into view and in front of the gate a group of what he assumed were students was standing. Both of them made their way to the front of the group. He was now standing next to that bloodsucker girl and what he could only define as a human mountain dressed in yellow and mumbling, deciding to catch his breath instead of talking to the ball of nerves at his side, he looked ahead of them. In front of him there were standing a group of young people in uniform, they seemed to have his age, amongst the uniformed men and women two of them stood ahead of the group.

In few words they were probably the most beautiful people he had ever seen, the girl had a lustrous silver hair that reached her waist, chocolate skin, prominent cheekbones that made her smile stand out, her cheeks adorned with pink makeup that looked like small V under her eyes. The boy wasn’t bad at all, on the contrary Lance had as much of a hard time keeping his eye off him as he did from the girl. He had white skin and dark raven hair styled in a mullet, his bangs working as a frame for the two dark eyes that he swore were purple.

“Greetings, my name is Allura Altea, the current student council president” the girl said stepping forward “and this is Keith Kogane my vice president” she introduced the boy at her side and explained that the people behind her were volunteers that would be giving them a tour around the school grounds before the entrance ceremony at the auditorium where the teachers and the head master would formally greet them.

The boy named Keith along with other volunteers helped the students form groups and set them off with one of the guides, he went from person to person putting them in a group until he finally reached Lance and his group.

“Lance Serrano, Katie Holt, Henare Garret” he said looking at them, his eyes glowing slightly under the sun, and then to the guides who were rapidly leaving with other groups “I guess you all will be with us” he called Allura over and exchanged a couple of words

“Yes I’m sure we can give them a tour” Allura smiled “welcome to Altea high, I’m sure you will find it very interesting here this year”


	2. A night to remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, sorry for the wait, chapter 2 took longer than expected, writting battles is harder that i thougt it would be, but i think it came out well, when you get to the start of it i recommed playing the peacekeeper theme from project wingman! its the song that inspired the entire battle. hope you like it!

“Welcome to Altea high, I’m sure you will find it very interesting here this year”

The dark skinned girl said to them, Katie wasn’t really paying attention to what was being said, just enough to understand they would be going around the school with the two people in front of her. She had spent most of the introduction and explanation looking for Matt, he had left without waking her up to catch the bus and didn’t even wait for his cute little sister and share the pain of running to school (even if it wasn’t really that tiresome as much as it was just a bother) so she wanted to launch a few complains at him.

Despite her best efforts she had been unable to find Matt so she assumed he was hiding somewhere in the crowd or already left with other group, disappearing was a skill he was annoyingly good at. Katie gave up on finding him and focused her attention on the people in front of her, she would have other opportunities to catch her brother.

Looking around she realized there were quite a few of her kind, she could count at least 16 which she did not expect, it wasn’t hard to notice them in big groups of people if you focussed on looking, vampires could see the blood flow in the bodies of others, it helped with ‘hunting’ when they still did that, well some of them still do that but the practice has been going out of fashion, it is a very useful ability for hiding now and keeping the masquerade up would never go out fashion, but it was weird to find this many so soon and so close.

“Now if you would please follow me” Allura said as she lead them away from the main gate, Katie knew this was a private school opened by the Altea company but she never expected to just meet the daughter of the owner in her first day of school. The other boy, Keith Kogane also felt familiar in some way, like she had heard the name before but she couldn’t place where.

At her side there was the boy that crashed into her before, Lance Serrano the raven haired boy had called him, was wearing grey jeans with rips on the knee area, a white t-shirt, under a pale blue open shirt, finalizing the attire with some blue and white shoes. She looked at him for a second and then turned back looking at the groups of people leaving with their guides, Katie couldn’t help but wonder how many of those would be werewolves like Lance, they weren’t as easy to find for her, she had to rely in her sense of smell, which wasn’t really that good but good enough to recognize the dog like undertones in him, that and no normal human hits that hard. She still felt the crash, Lance had hit her like a damn car.

Then there was the other guy, Henare Garret, a big guy, brown skin, he was wearing a yellow bandana and long sleeved shirt, brown pants and black boots, as far as she could tell he wasn’t neither her kin nor lances, he seemed like a normal human, a very big one but human non the less. Well maybe not entirely normal he was way too nervous, his heart beating as fast as that of a mouse, Katie frowned was he about to have a heart attack?

“Hey are you ok?” she decided to ask and try to help before he indeed ended having one.

“Oh!” he jumped a bit when she spoke and then looked in her direction “y- yeah I’m fine, never better!” he said looking at Katie who remained unconvinced.

“Ok sorry, I’m just very nervous, first day of school don’t want to make bad impressions or anything, you know how this is right?” he continued after looking at her.

“Yeah, I know, honestly I prefer to just focus on the promise of great labs” Katie answered sympathetically vampire or not, she could understand the whole not wanting to be isolated again “well at least we are not risking our school lives flirting away during the first day of school” she mentioned looking at Lance.

“So miss school president, tell me, did it hurt when you feel from to sky?” Lance was flirting with Allura as they walked to which she just rolled her eyes.

“Yup, I don’t want any of that, being rejected on the first day? Noooooo thanks!” Henare said forming an ‘X’ with his arms “oh, the names Henare Garret but you can just call me Hunk if you want” he said extending a hand

“Katie Holt, my friends call me Pidge” if I had any, she thought to herself shaking his hand.

“First” they heard a feminine voice trying to get their attention “we have the main building, here you will be having your classes, your schedules should have been sent to your email by now” Allura explained as they approached the building, ignoring Lance’s advances “if for some reason they have not been sent, at the end of the day you all will be given a small data pad with all the information you need”

“It will also be your connection to the school’s systems, it allows you to schedule the use of the facilities outside of the normal times like the pool or the labs outside of class or club activities, as well as using the school’s both physical and virtual library, so please take care of them” Keith continued holding up a red coloured tablet, well it was mostly just the frame of one, the device displayed the information in a holographic projection a couple of centimetres over the thin screen, then he closed the device, folding in it until it became small enough to fit comfortably in his palm.

“It folds for convenience so you don’t have to worry about it being a bother to carry, it’s not the same as the ones used by Marmora at the Thaldycon labs but it is designed to help with your school lives, it has design programs, simulations and code editors for any projects you wish to realize, school related or otherwise” He finished explaining.

“As long as it comes with your number it will never be a bother” Lance mentioned waving his eyebrow at Keith.

Katie was exited now, she didn’t expect the school to just give them this kind of stuff and looking at it, while she would have to test it herself first, the data pads looked to be one of Marmora’s latest designs, not quite the state of the art ones they used at their labs, but it seemed to be a model way above the usual commercial stuff sold to the general public, which meant it would be pretty nice to play around with it later on. And looking at her side, it seemed that Henare had realized that too, and was getting calmer with the promise of technology.

The layout of the campus was easy enough to memorize, the central building was where the classrooms were located as well as the lockers, which had electronic locks that they could set to open with their fingerprints if so they wished.

The second place they visited was the fairly bigger building housing the various labs, and oh boy was she happy to have come to this school. The labs appeared to have been pluck straight out of the labs at Altea industries if her father’s description of them was to be believed. The same building also housed the infirmary, so the nurse could treat fast anyone that suffered any injuries or accidents here.

Then there was the library an entire building on its own, which was a rare sight, physical books aren’t really popular nor a necessity now that everything can be found online in digital form, Allura explained that it was a preference of the founder, aka her father, it also helped to keep old books that needed special care. Next was the Gym a big building that housed, well the gymnasium with the basketball court, as well as the indoors pool. At its side there was the student union building, where the student council had their room and those clubs that did not need special facilities would have their meeting rooms.

Finally there was the auditorium where the headmaster would be giving a welcome speech soon, so they were asked to be seated before it started, then Keith and Allura excused themselves leaving their group to their own devices. And by their heart rate and general posture both of them were way more relaxed now that they were free from Lance’s flirting. Suddenly she felt the cold air around them, she hadn’t noticed it before but she was quite warm, which was strange, vampires were usually cold, so even during summer she never felt the warmth.

“They are totally into me” Lance said watching them go, snapping her from her thoughts.

“Yeah lover boy, you have them eating from the palm of your hand” Katie rolled her eyes so hard she was getting dizzy.

“You just don’t understand romance” he refuted while buttoning his shirt “wow it sure got cold all of a sudden”

“Yeah, wish I hadn’t left my vest at home, let’s go find a sit ok?” Hunk said making his way inside.

“Nice to see you calmed down now” Lance followed

“I was worried you would have a heart attack at the start” she mentioned walking with them. Earning a raised eyebrow from Lance. Yeah hearts, blood and vampires she got what he meant with that look and rolled her eyes once again.

“I’m still a bit nervous but this place is so cool I can’t stay worried, did you see those labs? Imagine the stuff we could make there!” Hunk told them with a smile “also you guys are easy to talk to and Keith and Allura don’t act like some obnoxious rich kids bullying people, so I’m not as worried about people here as before”

“Yeah this place is amazing so far and those data pads? I can’t believe they will just let us keep those things” Katie sat down in one of the rows on the back, perfect to sleep through the speech and the rest of the ceremony.

“You 2 can work on the labs all day, I’m going to enjoy my time with the student council, they probably can’t keep their minds off me” Lance and Hunk sat next to her.

“I would quit now that you are ahead, you aren’t the first fool to think like that” all of them turned to their left, there sitting next to Katie was a blond girl, pale white skin and light blue marks similar to Allura’s on her face, she was even wearing the same uniform as them but she had a bright yellow V on her chest, on her hands she was holding a camera pointed to the stage.

“Oh yeah? What do you know?!” Lance responded frowning

“I know that you will be the 185th person either of them rejects” she said, Lance opened his mouth about to answer before she continued “and before you say it no, it’s not just because Allura hasn’t met someone like you or Keith is playing hard” she said adjusting the lenses of her camera, it looked to be a professional but quite old model.

“She does sounds like she knows her stuff” Pidge said looking at Lance who had his mouth open mid answer.

The girl finally lowered the camera and looked at them, extending a hand “I’m Romelle, president of the school’s news club and secretary of the student council, I mostly take care of public relations”

“I’m Katie, you can call me Pidge” she gave her a hand shake.

“I’m hunk and this is Lance” Hunk said pointing at himself and at Lance.

“Oh from the new students, that explains the flirting attempts” she said pulling her camera up “mind if I take a photo? Is for the new arrivals article” they all nodded even if hunk tried to make himself small for it, at which he failed horribly.

“You are in the student council right? Do you know those two well?” Lance asked after the photo

“Trying to get help with the flirting?” Romelle answered with a smirk “there isn’t much I can tell you to be honest, they are pretty normal people when you get past the money”

“Oh come on, I will owe you one ok?” Lance pleaded making god damn puppy eyes, is this a werewolf thing? Katie asked herself looking, he honestly looked like a damn puppy asking for food.

“You better give him something, he will not give up” Pidge said to hopefully end the puppy eyes.

“ok ok, Keith and Allura, they have known each other since they were babies, childhood friends and all, both come from rich families, their parents are the CEO of tech giants, Allura loves pink and blue stuff, Keith’s favourite colours are black and red and that’s as much as I will give for free” Romelle explained to them before looking at the stage with her camera again.

Before lance could ask something else the lights went off, only the stage still being lit, many other students swarmed inside, taking sits all around, the entrance ceremony was starting. Gazing on the stage Katie saw Keith and Allura standing next to another girl, taller than Hunk and with more or less the same amount of muscle, brown hair and tanned skin, Allura gave a quick speech and introduction for the activities of the ceremony, then invited a red haired man, his hair was on the short side, fair skin and a couple of wrinkles on his face, finally a big red moustache adorning his face. The man stood on the podium, taking Allura’s place after she introduced him as Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, the school’s head master.

“Welcome students” the red haired man began talking “I know you all are excited and nervous about this new stage of your lives, from new students to old, today marks the start of a new journey” he scanned the room as if making sure to look at every student in the eyes.

“whether you come here due to your parents, your own merits or any other reason, know that in this school we are all equals, no matter your origins, race or creed, not even if you were of a different species all together” Coran raised a finger as he said this, like if trying to catch their attention

“know that here, you all are equals, friends, companions and rivals, all in equal footing and it’s our duty and honour here at Altea high to help you achieve your full potential, both academically and as people, so go ahead and live, fool around and learn, live a fulfilling school life that will become the foundation for your futures!” the head master started his speech with this words, he then continued by introducing the other teachers and staff at the school, finalizing with a speech about unity and team work between all the students and teachers.

As soon as the ceremony ended everyone was told to go to the main building where they would be given their data pads and they would be told where their lockers are situated.

“Here, let me take you to the entrance, I need to meet with Keith and Allura there anyway” Romelle offered even though they already knew where to go.

“Let’s go then” Lance accepted.

They chatted a bit during the way, at the entrance they could see a line of students and some volunteers handing data pads and directions to the lockers, the members of the student’s council were talking next to them, likely taking a break, as they approached she noticed the cold of the air gone again, it was getting warmer and warmer as they got closer, looking at Lance who was unbuttoning his shirt, she wasn’t the only one feeling it.

Keith turned for a moment and looked at them, his face visibly lighted up when his eyes focussed on Romelle as Katie and the others approached. The council decided to come meet them halfway, as Allura and the others were getting closer Romelle pointed her camera at them taking a quick photo.

“Our dashing school council comes to receive the new students” she said waving a hand in the air “that will be the headline for this photo” smiled at them before hugging Keith.

“I’ve been looking for you all day, you left home without me again” Keith grumbled after returning the hug.

“Sorry, I just wanted to get some early shots of the volunteers and help Allura as much as I could”

“For now, Keith why don’t you take our new friends with you and get them their data pads” Allura intervened, giving him a look that didn’t leave much room for arguments.

“Sigh, ok” he looked at Katie and the others “come with me please”.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Romelle sighed in relief as Keith left, she knew he had stuff to say about her leaving early this morning, looking to her side she smiled at Allura who was walking back to their position, out of anyone’s earshot.

“Thanks for the save” Romelle followed.

“Just use the time to prepare, Keith and Krolia will absolutely scold you” Allura said looking at her with a frown.

“We appreciate the help this morning, but don’t you think it was a bit much to do all of Keith’s work?” Shay continued with a worried look.

“It’s fine and he has been working at night, I was sure he could use the rest” she wave them off.

Allura sighed shaking her head “I’m not sure he will see it that way” she looked at the group of students “at least today has been good, no fights between conflicting races or anything”

“I hope it stays like that” Shay mentioned “the school is better without problems going around”

“Yeah, I even got a few good photos of various races being friendly, werewolves, vampires and a magician, very interesting stuff” she says looking at the photos of Pidge and her group.

“Sadly we won’t get much rest today with this peace, Keith mentioned that tonight there will be some trouble, so all of us will need to be there” Allura looked at the two of them.

“Wait all of us? That sounds more than just ‘some trouble’ if you ask me” Romelle said making quotation marks with her fingers.

“He said it looked like a giant red gorilla attacking some students, so we need everyone to deal with that” Allura looked at the lines of students worried.

“We will need armour in that case, all of it” Shay interjected.

“I’ll go get them ready them” she said taking the chance to escape her brother’s scolding a bit longer.

“Thank you, try to get some rest while you are at it ok? We will need you in good shape” Allura told her as she left, clearly understanding Romelle’s intentions.

She walked away, towards the student’s union building, stopping a few times to take photos of the students, teachers and decorations around her, she made sure to take great pictures of the decorations she herself helped make, one must be proud of their own work. Well it wasn’t her work, technically most of those would have been either supervised or hanged by Keith, with the final details being made this morning. Work she did for him.

She understood why he would be upset, she had been leaving early for a while, not sharing breakfast with her family and taking over his duties as part of the council. Even if she knew he wasn’t mad about having less work and more about her leaving him and Krolia alone in such a way. Romelle sighed looking at her camera, Krolia was probably upset too, or at least very worried and she felt bad for causing that. Even if they weren’t related by blood Krolia had treated her and Bandor like family from day one going as far as to adopting them all those years ago, Keith had taken a bit to warm up to them, he never mistreated them but he was a very isolated child, didn’t talk too much at the start, but after a while he treated them as if they were always family. She just wanted to do something to repay them for that, getting some of Keith’s work done so he could learn more about running Marmora was just the least she could do.

Lost in her thoughts, Romelle had entered the building and made her way to the student’s council room, in the first floor. The council was strange here, in theory it was voted by all the students as normal, but well no one wanted to compete with Allura, probably out of fear of angering the daughter of the founder, so she had been president since her first year, and her committee had been the same since then.

Romelle entered the room, greeting her were a central table surrounded by 2 sofas, a quite big desk where Allura worked, bookshelves covering both walls, windows at the end of the room behind the desk and at the side illuminating the table, she closed the curtains in the room before moving towards a small bookshelf, she grabbed a small plain looking blue book, tilting it a bit she heard the familiar click that accompanied the desk and the floor below it moving, revealing a set of stairs, the desk moved back into position after Romelle walked down.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt had been hiding from his sister the whole day, it was honestly her fault, he told her to go to sleep as early as she could but she didn’t listen, working on one of her projects till it was almost sunrise. Of course she would oversleep and he couldn’t wait forever. Not like Pidge would see it that way, he knew he had to face his sister’s wrath at one point this day and that moment was now.

Matt had gone to receive his own data pad, he had just got his hands on it when he heard the words “You asshole!!” behind him, turning he encountered his sweet little sister charging to tackle him, sadly he was a second too slow to avoid the hit, Pidge had charged at him and shoulder tackle him in the belly forcing the air out of his lungs.

“Is that really the way to greet anyone?!” he said grabbing his stomach.

“Yes” she said crossing her arms

“Damn, you sure you are not part of the rugby team or something?” a slim guy in blue shirt said moving towards them

“I think you broke something” another guy, a big tanned guy said looking at him worried.

“She didn’t break anything, barely” he said straightening up.

“I disagree on **that** being a good greeting” a guy he recognized from the ceremony as part of the student council said looking at him.

“Same here” Matt offered a hand to the boy “Matthew Holt” one by one the boys introduced themselves, Keith frowned for a second, his eyes flickering under the lights making them look bright purple for a second.

“I’ll go get the data pads and get you all set” Keith mentioned after the introductions.

“Oh I don’t have my schedule yet, can you help me with that?” Pidge said walking with him.

“Sure, just give me a second” he got a data pad and messed with it for a second “oh we have some classes together” he showed her the data pad and the schedule with Matt looking over her shoulder.

“Really? Any advice?”

“If you like engineering professor Rayner gives some extra classes after the usual science class” he said “as for history, study a lot, Iverson is former military and he still knows how to shout like a drill sergeant if you screw up”

“And gym?” she asked

“Don’t even think of lying to skip it, I haven’t seen anyone managed to pull that off” he answered to which Pidge let her shoulders down in defeat.

“I think I see math with you too” Lance said looking over while Keith got everyone else their data pads. The dog smell emanating from him had not escaped Matt, a werewolf he assumed.

“well with that and your lockers assigned you are set for today” he said once he handed all the data pads and assigned their locker numbers “a lot of clubs have prepared presentations for the new students in case you want to stay and watch them, but you are free to go for the day if you wish”

“That depends, are you free to go? Maybe to get a drink with a handsome new student?” Lance said wiggling his eyebrows.

“No, I have to stay, got some work with the council” he deadpanned “if that is all, I have to leave” Keith waved them good bye once he made sure they didn’t need his help anymore.

“Though cookie” Matt said watching him go.

“He is just playing hard”

“Or your moves are just terrible” Katie smirked at him

“Soo are we checking the clubs or no?” Hunk asked the group.

“We could check them and then go out for pizza or something, my treat!” Matt looked at Pidge before leaning in “try to be nice, you don’t get many chances to make friends as it is” to which she just rolled her eyes.

The day went by quickly, looked at a most of the club exhibitions, small robot prototypes, some performances from the drama and music clubs, a couple of duels from fencing club, Matt couldn’t believe this place has a fencing club, talk about fancy. After they were done it was about 4 pm and they decided to go look for a place to eat at. Matt had to push his bike to be able to talk and walk with the others.

They found a small dinner not too far from there, ate some burgers and discussed about food, Matt was pleased to see that Lance agreed with him on the pineapple pizza issue, recruiting a new ally for the pizza wars. After that they found an arcade. And spent some time playing, Lance thoroughly destroyed all of them in the dancing games while Pidge got the highest score at whack a mole.

It was getting rather late when they all felt like going home, it happened that they all had to walk in the same direction for a bit, passing through the park that was a few streets away from the school. The night was honestly feeling great, and he could see his sister was feeling more awake and relaxed now, yeah nothing could beat the night for vampires.

The cold air of the night was nice, and Katie seemed to be getting along better with the other two. He got to see some hot students, yeah today was a good day. Matt hoped the entire year would be like this, just fun high school times.

They passed the park and walked down some lonely streets, passing by a building still in construction, a future mall it seemed by the billboards around the area, as they walked by a crackling noise came from inside, they ignored it for a moment as they kept going but another noise came, this time louder. Looking at Lance who looked focussed it seemed he was hearing more than just crackling.

“What was that?” Hunk asked, before anyone else could answer the noise came again, this time louder.

“Let’s check it out” Pidge was the first one to talk, moving towards the source of the noise. Lance and him nodded following.

“eeehh, g-guys shouldn’t we be moving away from the scary noise?” Hunk stated pointing at the other direction “this is how every horror movie starts”

“Come on man, what if someone is in trouble or something?” Lance said waving hunk over “besides it could be fun”

They walked past the no entry warnings, moving inside the building, construction materials scattered around them in the half finished mall, they kept going following the sound, as they got closer they could hear mumbling, words they did not understood, creeping closer using half made walls and foundation pillars as cover the words grew louder, it was only one voice interrupted by the crackling of electricity. From what seemed to be the centre of the building a dim red light came, light that became stronger with every crackling.

Moving towards it, Matt peeked his head behind a wall, there he saw it, a man in robes, arms open as he chanted, magic circle drawn and active in front of him, generating the red light they had seen, brighter and brighter, focusing on the circle he saw a body, an old man that looked like a hobo when he was alive. His blood filling the runes at the circle’s edges. They needed to leave now. He turned to the others only to find Hunk behind him looking at the scene.

“Demon summoning” those were the only words to come out Hunk’s mouth.

At that moment everyone was in agreement, they had to run, turning around they were ready to speed towards the exit, a final crackling as loud as a thunder came from behind, followed by a guttural roar that made their bones tremble.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA YES! YES! YES!” the voice from the chants shouted in delight as they began to run “WITH YOU I FINA-” his words were cut short, the sound of bones being crushed and meat being tenderized with force and violence reaching Matt’s ears.

They ran even faster, all of them fearing for their lives at the moment, too fast for Hunk to keep up, his foot got caught when he tried to vault over sacks of cement making him fall on some other materials causing a loud crash answered by another roar and the ground trembling as the sound of heavy footsteps approached. Lance and Matt ran back, grabbing Hunk and forcing him on his feet, Katie moved forward looking for a place where they could hide.

“Over here!” she said amongst some machinery, she guide them behind a digger that hadn’t been taken out of the site just yet. Lance pushing Hunk to keep up the pace while Matt brought up the rear.

Another roar came a second before they all hid behind the digger followed by the sound of a wall being destroyed, matt managed to see the creature, 4 meters tall, red fur and skin dark as the night, arms bigger than Matt’s entire body, blood red eyes, large nostrils and tusks too large to fit in its own mouth. His right arm and mouth covered in blood.

The creature sniffed the air and moved forward looking for them, Matt looked at his group, Katie had her hands over her mouth and was breathing fast, Lance had covered Hunk’s mouth and they both were sweating cold, everyone’s eyes was scanning the area for a place to run, or just hoping the ancestors protected them.

The creature walked by, almost as if ignored the digger, the tremble caused by its steps ceasing, they all had a relieve expression for a second until they heard the metal behind them creak, moving, it was raising, no, it was being lifted they moved away from it, the digger keep raising revealing little by little the red furred monster looking straight at them. They attempted to run but it threw the digger in front of them cutting off their escape.

“Screw this, we will have to fight!” Lance shouted taking his shirt off, a mix of fear and anger in his face as it began to be covered in fur and extend forward, his skin almost ripping itself apart as he grew taller, his arms longer and his nails turned into claws, he was transforming. Matt wasn’t sure they could win that fight but Lance was right, running away wasn’t an option at the moment, the beast was cutting the way they came from and even if it hadn’t he wasn’t sure they could out run him when he was this close.

“Pidge, Hunk find us a way out!” finally Matt ordered, hoping his sister could come up with a way to get away from this thing without it following them, and moved forward standing next to Lance, they may not be as sharp but a vampire’s nails were good claws too, and he had other abilities to aid in battle.

The monster charged at them and they responded in kind, as the beast’s giant fist moved to connect with Lance, he ducked bellow it, using the momentum to get closer and aim a slash of his claws at its side, cutting the flesh and fur of the beast, barely. Another giant fist came knocking Lance of his feet, flying a few meters away.

Matt manoeuvred himself behind the monster and jumped on its back, sharp nails aiming for its face, eyes, nose, anything. Scratching at it with all he could the monster let another roar out, moving its hands to his back, trashing as he tried to grab Matt who tried to move to the centre of its back, staying out of reach but the jumping and erratic movements of the gorilla made it hard for him to stay in place. A giant meaty hand grabbed Matt by his shoulder, grasping hard enough he felt something crack inside his body. The beast made him fly over its body before slamming into the ground, looking up Matt saw the monster’s two fist raised, and promptly coming down ready to crush him.

Matt focused just in time, feeling his body lose form and substance, he let himself turn into mist avoiding the hit entirely, the mist moved slowly out of the way as the beast swung with its hands trying to hit the gas. Lance took the chance getting up and replacing Matt on the monster’s back biting on its throat as hard as he could.

“WHAT DO WE DO?” he heard Hunks voice from behind them as his body took corporeal form again.

“JUST FOLLOW ME” Pidge answered but Matt couldn’t focus on them, he had to join the fight again.

The monster walked back, pushing Lance towards a wall, planning to crush him between itself and the concrete. Seeing this Lance let go at the last second moving away and letting the monster crash alone on the building.

“THE PIPES NOW” Katie’s voice ordered Hunk as Matt and Lance met the creature in a melee, battle in which they were promptly being pushed back, as they moved backwards Matt hear splashing as they walked, the ground was wet, water covering more and more of it.

Jumping out of the way of another hit Matt looked behind, Hunk was standing near a bunch of broken pipes, a stream of water coming out of them, his hand stretched forward and mumbling words he didn’t comprehend, a magic circle forming on his hand.

“Matt Lance get out of there” Pidge’s voice came as a warning as they saw one of the cranes moving, metallic beams carried by it at high speed, stopping over their heads.

“Time to go!” Matt said turning to mist and moving away from the area, after slashing once more against the creature Lance got hit square in the chest, flying away various meters, luckily enough to not be in danger.

Hunk slammed the magic circle on the ground, large spikes of earth growing aiming to pierce the monster, the beast swung his arm breaking the spikes before they could reach him but the distraction was enough, hitting a button Katie let the beams lose, the large pieces of steel falling on top of the monster, crushing it under their weight, until it was on the floor.

“Take that you giant freak!” Lance’s voice came from his side seeing the monster fall, cracking came from the pile of metal, as it started to raise again.

“Not done yet!” Pidge shouted running towards them with her bag in her hands, carrying something heavy inside.

“On it!” another magic circle appeared in hunk’s hands, the stream of water coming from the broken and exposed pipes becoming stronger, washing over the beast and the metal.

Katie step close to them throwing her back into the pool of water forming under the monster, as it hit electric crackling came, hitting the floor the bag revealed batteries, many and big, Matt looked back seeing most of the equipment in the area gutted, the digger, mixers and even the crane she just used had their innards opened and their batteries removed, all of them now spreading their current through the water and the metal to that beast.

The monster let out a roar of pain as the electricity travelled through its body, it lasted long until the batteries were all out of power, the monster now buried under the metal, and they smiled at each other.

“We did it!!!” they all shouted hugging each other. Lance and Matt high fived, he then ruffled his sister’s hair happy.

A cricking sound came from behind them as they celebrated, an explosive roar was heard as all but one of the steel beams were flung in all directions, the monster grabbed one of them and moved forward swinging its new weapon, Pidge managed to hit the floor before the hit came, the beam moving over her, Hunk managed to run out of range since he was the furthest away. Matt and Lance weren’t so lucky, they were too slow to react the metal beam hitting both of them in one attack. Matt felt the hit, hearing the loud crack of his arm, ribs and the ancestor know what else breaking as his body flied backwards. Stumbling on the ground, he looks around, Lance seemed to be in just as bad of a shape as he and Hunk had rushed towards Lance magic circle over his wounds as they slowly started closing.

Matt’s head snapped back to the monster, looming over his sister the beast held the metal beam high ready to use it to club Katie to her death “RUN!” Matt struggled to let the words out but his shout seemed to come too late, she turned to the side trying to jump and avoid the hit, but her reaction was too slow.

Matt closed his eyes, he couldn’t watch that, he couldn’t see his sister be crushed like that he could feel the cold chill of his sweat running down his spine, he was terrified, he didn’t want her to die not here not now. But the meaty sound he expected never came, another roar was the only sound heard, the cold fear was replaced, suddenly the entire area felt warm, hot almost too hot but not uncomfortably so still. He forced his eyes open, focussing on the monster he saw a blade sticking on its shoulder, a curved short sword, the monster tried to bring the beam down on Katie again but this time sharp spikes of earth flew towards it, embedding themselves in his armpits and forearms, forcing the beast to drop the beam which barely missed his sister as it landed on the ground.

A dark figure moved forward, running past Matt and towards Katie, dark armour covering their body, a belt filled with knives, mask that kept everything from the nose to the chin covered, only leaving the eyes revealed, a dark hood covering the rest of their head, the armour had small patches of dark crimson colour. The figure kept moving, sliding once they were near Katie, their backs almost touching the ground ending in a sitting position next to his still crouching sister, the figure extended a hand to the monster, putting the other over Katie’s shoulder and bringing her close to them, almost guarding her in their chest, a magic circle appeared on the extended hand and before Matt could process it, white hot flames came out of their hands, forcing the monster back as it roared and tried to cover its face from the flames.

Three other figures ran forwards, wearing the same uniforms with different colours, one of them their armour with some light blue colouring in the same patches as the red one, held a camera up, pointing it at the monster, once the flash of the photo went off a wave of ice, cold air, as icicles grew from the figure all the way to the creature freezing some of it and impaling it earning another roar while their companion burned it. Another figure with pink colouring and holding a staff kneeled down in front of him, magic circle on hand they began to cure Matt’s wounds, he look at his saviour, only seeing a bit of silver hair bellow the hood.

The forth figure stood in front of Hunk and Lance, their back turned to them showed a brown tone, they kneeled at put a hand on the ground, then in front of them the earth moved, the concrete floor shifted as a wall appeared blocking them from the monster’s view, the wall extended towards Pidge and her saviour, cutting them off the monster, the figure near his sister seemed to say something to her before putting his hands under her knees and standing up, Katie being carried in their arms as they ran towards Lance and Hunk. Seeing this his own healer grabbed him not all gently, carrying him over one shoulder towards the others.

“Good job holding on till now” the pink one said with feminine voice while laying him in on the floor as the brown one surrounded them in more walls.

The red one kneeled next to him setting Katie carefully “stay here, it’s safer for you” he told her before looking at Matt “same for you, do not leave until we are done” he said in a masculine tone

The blue one jumped on top of the wall being formed, taking more photos of the beast “analysis complete! Species: Barlgura, normal fire, ice or electricity is not effective against it! It’s thick hide means normal blades or hits won’t do much damage neither!”

“At least earth attacking it is still effective” the brown said.

“Everyone get her a clean shot then” Standing up the red one ordered their companions “don’t worry we will take it from here” he said with confidence as the wall surrounding them made an opening for them to step out. They had no other choice aside from trusting them at this point, so they sat watching them go and the opening close, ready to listen to the battle outside until its conclusion.


	3. Animal Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3 woohoo! i honestly thought this chapter wouldn't come out, my pc decided to die so i lost the first draft i had of it, and had to write it all again, but it is here now, thanks to everyone for reading!!!

**Chapter 3: Animal control**

“Don’t worry we will take it from here” Keith said as the concrete wall reformed keeping the students inside, he looked ahead at the Barlgura, the beast brought a hand to its shoulder, grabbing his blade and yanking it out of its flesh, grabbing the blade with both arms the Barlgura tried to break it, flexing its muscles as much as it could but the blade didn’t break nor bent, after trying the monster just threw it at them, his sword crashing on the ground with a clank.

The monster looked at them as it moved to the side on its four appendages, walking like a silverback gorilla assessing a threat. It seems they managed to give him a scare with their entrance and now he was being careful. There were bruises all over the monster, the view made him chuckle, Katie and her friends really did a number on this thing so he wasn’t too sure if to be really impressed by them or disappointed on the demon.

Bringing a hand under his hood, pressing a button on the earpiece connected to his mask “direct communication, we don’t want them to hear our names or anything” he said reaching with his left hand for one of the daggers in his belt. As the others prepared, this way the mask would catch the sound of their voices keeping others from hearing their conversations while it transmitted their voices to one another.

“What’s the plan then?” Romelle said aiming her camera at the monster, who was now pacing looking at them waiting to see their move.

“Fire and ice won’t do much damage unless Keith decides to go wild” Allura said looking back at the wall protecting the new students “which I don’t recommend right now”

Keith grabbed his sword from the ground “but a giant boulder flying at high speed could work” he turned to Shay “think you can do that?” Shay nodded in answer.

“Then Allura get its attention, I disorient it, Romelle limits its movements and when Shay finds an opening she finish it, watch each other’s back and let’s kill this thing” Keith ordered trying to make his best leader impression, trying to act like his mother or Kolivan. Everyone else nodded in agreement and got ready.

Allura charged forward as the beast decided to meet her half way, fist swinging forward, using her staff as a pole she vaulted over the attack, landing behind it, the monster turned around quickly only to be greeted by the metal punch of Allura’s staff connecting with the side of its head, contrary to what her slim body figure suggested Allura was physically the strongest member of their group, fact the creature was now painfully aware of.

Keith and Romelle moved next, manoeuvring to the monster’s left, Romelle stayed behind pointing her camera at the beast while Keith moved forward, taking advantage of the barlgura being distracted with Allura, focussing on his sword, emitting heat from his palm, he covered the blade in flames as he charged, his job was to disorient the monster and honestly, Keith didn’t know anything more disorienting than a flaming sword to the face trying to carve your eyes off.

Allura stepped to the right avoiding a giant fist, seeing Keith move towards them she decided to counter attack with her staff, bringing the butt of it up to meet with the monster’s face, forcing it to look away from him. For his part Keith took the chance Allura gave him, the monster sent another hit at Allura which she deflected forcing the fist hit the ground for a second, using that moment Keith switched his blade to his left hand, he vaulted over the balrgura’s arm while he slashed with the blade at the monster’s face, the sword cut the monster’s face from its cheek passing through its nose and carving through its left eye, blood poured from the cut splashing Keith and Allura.

the cut wasn’t as deep as he had hoped for but he did cut in a strange angle the fire was also not enough to burn the flesh the sword had carved through, really this thing would be annoying, that first burst of flames he made while saving Katie were as far as he could go with fire without there being a risk of him injuring his allies or worse the students so he preferred to not go there for now.

The barlgura trashed, swinging its right arm in the air trying to hit something while its left hand held its face, a roar of pain ringing in their ears. Keith had to duck and dodge some hits, sharp rocks flying next to him and embedding themselves into the monster’s flesh, both allura and him kept close to the beast, he was cutting at its legs, aiming to bring it down, for a second his view split, the barlgura doubled in his eyes as he watched his own body move, rolling ahead one, twice dodging the fists just to be surprised by the monster’s head, fangs biting into his shoulder.

Keith rolled forward, one, two times, timing the seconds to his vision, rolling backwards at the last second avoiding the fangs of the beast, pulling his sword backwards and trusting forward towards its face, carving deep into the remaining eye, this time Keith felt the blade cut deep, marmorite was not just any metal, so with a good hit he could cut well sadly he couldn’t finish the monster with that hit. Keith had to once again move backwards to avoid getting hit.

“Now this needs some slow mo” Keith heard Romelle said and the flash of her camera came from behind the creature, a blue glow covering it as his movements became slow and sluggish as if it was covered in cement quickly solidifying. Moving low again he kept slashing at its legs, looking to cut tendons and flesh to bring the monster to the ground. More flashes of light came, ice growing behind the creature and forming into spikes that pierced its body.

As this happened Shay moved inside the half made building, on top of the first floor and to the second, to the only finished concrete wall looking towards the fight staying a few meters away, jumping in place, bouncing from one leg to the other while she waited for a signal to act.

Allura kept hitting the beast as Keith cut seeing it falter for a moment she took the chance, hitting behind its legs with her staff, with all her strength making it fall on its knees, Keith climbed on the beasts back until he stood on its shoulders, jumping down piercing the monster’s shoulder with his blade and using gravity and his entire body weight, to force the barlgura’s upper body down, arms on the ground for a moment before Allura knocked them away forcing the rest of the beast to the floor.

“Shay now!” Romelle yelled in the intercom of her mask.

“On it!” shay bounced once more before sprinting towards the wall before jumping, making her body go horizontally in the air as she drop kicked the concrete with both legs, the wall broke fast, a slab of concrete at least as big as the monster flying out at high speed with Shay riding it as it if was a surf board, almost as if an explosion had sent them out of the building. Shay looked down at the battle, riding the slab she saw the monster on the ground, as she fell Shay aligned the slab’s edge with the beast’s cranium, making sure it would crush it with as much force as it could.

The beast’s head moved up slowly still under the effects of Romelle’s magic, it saw Shay and the slab approaching fast, its mouth began to open, trying to roar one last time as it attempted to move out of the way, attempt that was stopped by Allura who hit it on its back to keep it on the floor and Keith who pierced its arm with the same purpose. Shay was rapidly approaching the ground, making sure the wall would collide with its target by using a bit of magic to keep it straight she jumped away towards Romelle, she wasn’t as strong as Allura but Shay hoped she would catch her.

As Shay landed in Romelle’s arms and both of them fell to the ground, the slab of stone finally crashed into the barlgura’s head, crushing it under its weight as the stone itself cracked due to the force of the fall, the sound of bone and concrete breaking mixed in Keith’s ears as he and Allura jumped out of the way, avoiding any debris that could fall out and hit them. Dust covered the area for a second as he got up on his feet and looked at the monster.

A good part of the slab was still upright embedded into the ground and clearly having crushed the skull of the beast, a red splatter of blood covering the area around where its head once was, Allura and the others soon got closer examining the body, as they did, the corpse began to emit a slight glow, as it’s meat and bones began to turn into ambers, proving they had succeed, the creature was turning to ashes and being scattered, as there wasn’t any source of power to maintain that body’s form, it was well and truly dead.

“By the spirits that was harder than I thought” Romelle said letting herself drop on the ground.

“Yes, that was scary” Shay looked at the corpse as it disappeared.

“Indeed this was a strong foe, I’m just glad we made it in time to help the students” Allura mentioned as she turned to the walls protecting Katie and the others from the fight. “I’m glad you saw it was them who would be attacked Keith”

“I just saw Matt and his sister being crushed by the barlgura, we still had to find where they were at the time which was harder to do with all the other nut jobs causing trouble” Keith passed a hand through his hair, under his hood trying to focus again.

“3 demons in a night, some cult must have tried to get a foot hold in the city” Allura mused.

“Question is who? And if there are any more members doing that” Shay sat next to Romelle thinking.

“I think we should focus on the students for now” the chocolate skin girl mentioned motioning to the walls “Shay, could you please move the walls away, we need to check them and escort them to their homes”

“Oh yeah, here” Shay moved her hands as she stood up, the walls going back into the ground.

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Katie sat next to Matt holding his hand, she could hear the battle outside and she couldn’t help but worry about the result, she didn’t want to imagine what would happen if they lost. She hated how useless she felt, they had thrown everything she could think of at that monster, only stopping short of bringing the building down on top of them and it hadn’t been enough.

At her side Hunk was treating a Lance who had transformed back into human form, slowly closing his wounds with some spell she didn’t quite understand, one of those masked people had healed some of Matt’s wounds, the most pressing ones at least, vampires heal quickly, it consumes a lot of energy and he would be craving some blood as soon as he got home, if they got home.

“Lance speak to me, how are you feeling? Are you alive? Is this working? It should be working” Hunk asked magic circle on his hand as he healed the injuries in Lance’s body, he had been working on that for a while, trying to focus through the noise of the battle outside of the walls.

“It’s working buddy, I think my ribs finally got back into the right place” Lance smiled at the big soft giant helping him.

“Ok ok, just hang on a minute and I’ll have you healed up” Hunk cleaned the sweet on his forehead with his sleeve, focussing back in his task

The sound of pained and angry roars, giant fists hitting the ground, metal hitting meat and ice breaking reached their ears, Lance’s head turned towards the sound eyes closing “well at least all of them are alive” he said

“You think they will wi-” a loud crash interrupted Katie the ground under them trembling for a moment, once it stopped there was only silence, no more fist hitting the ground, no more roars but also no more voices, metal hitting flesh or ice breaking or piercing something, just silence. Katie held her breath as she gripped Matt’s hand, if that monster came she would grab throw him over her shoulder and run if she had to.

After a few tense seconds nothing came, no earth trembling under giant feet, but the walls still cracked, breaking, crumbling away and fusing once more with the ground, in front of them a slab of concrete stood tall piercing the ground in the position where the monster’s head once was, the giant body limp on the ground, slowly dissolving into ambers and ash.

The blue and brown masked people were sitting on the ground around the monster, breathing heavily while the red one patted blue on the back, finally the pink one was walking towards them calmly. Pidge let out a sigh of relief once she finally processed the scene, they were safe.

“I’m sorry for the wait, but now if you would allow me, I can help with healing your wounds” she said kneeling next to Lance and waiting for him or Hunk to give their approval.

“Oh yes, please do” once Hunk approved the woman nodded and her hands glowing as runes appeared around them and she got to work.

“I know you must be tired, but if you could help your vampire friend while I work here I would be most grateful” the woman said looking at Matt.

“o-o-o-of course” he moved towards them stuttering for a moment as he rushed towards Katie and Matt.

Hunk kneeled next to them magic circle in his hand reaching towards Matt, he stopped a few centimetres away from Matt’s body “sorry, I don’t know much about vampires, would a healing spell hurt him? L-l-like a zombie or something” he asked looking at Pidge

“No, its fine, we are not really undead” she answered and Hunk got to work, his spell accelerating the healing process.

Once it seemed like Matt would be ok, Katie looked around taking in the scene, the Barlgura as the blue girl had called the monster when the wall was being formed around them had disappeared, it’s body scattered in the wind as ashes, around them the water from the exposed and broken pipes continued to flow, the machines she had gutted to get the batteries for her plan still around and destroyed, she felt bad for damaging them that much but she didn’t have time to remove them kindly, looking at the building itself she was glad it was still under construction, at least 3 walls had monster sized holes and many others had cracks caused by the beast’s hits, looking up another wall had a section missing, probably were the slab of concrete that killed the monster came from.

While she looked up something caught her attention, a rectangular box with a lens hanging from one of the light poles and pointing straight at the building, more specifically straight at the area where Lance had turned into a werewolf to fight a demon from hell while Matt transformed his body into mist and Hunk and she had used magic to further vandalize the construction site until a group of strange masked people came and did even more magic, recording it all on video.

“Fuck” that was the best response she had for that, the other members of the masked group where approaching as she said it, stopping for a moment and following her gaze to the camera.

“Yeah, that’s bad” the blue one said standing next to Katie looking at the camera “you think it’s a close circuit?”

“I can’t tell from here” Pidge squinted focussing on the camera, it had finally settled that they survived and would be fine, but getting caught on camera was bad, not horrible but at worse they all would be forced to leave the city, change their names and more. “One way to know, can someone give me a lift up there?” Katie walked towards the light pole with the camera, taking from her pocket the data pad the school gave them, if it was time to see if it was as good as they said.

The masked people looked at each other and decided to follow her “you know how to erase that footage?” she heard the manly voice of the red one as they walked

“if I can get up there, maybe I can do it” Katie stood in front of the light pole looking at them, the red one motioned brown to help her and with a couple of hand motions the ground under them started to grow, pushing them up until they were high enough to reach the camera.

Katie got fast at work, turning her data pad on and focussing on it, fog started to form in her hand surrounding the data pad, with her free hand she grabbed at it like it was a cable and leading it to the camera, the fog extending following her movements and connecting the two devices, small electric cracks moving across the fog between them.

She started digging through the archives, using the data pad as an interface for the information she got through the connection with her fog, the camera was indeed part of a closed system so she only had to deal with the video in this network, sadly the data pad was not designed to work in tandem with magical fog used for technomancy so a lot of had to be done in binary but it wasn’t hard and the coding systems in the data pad were very good.

Once she managed to get into the video feed and the archives she had to edit the videos, create a loop of a very boring night and erase the records with all of them, that wasn’t about to explain how the building got destroyed but at least it would not land them in trouble.

“Can you make it look like someone broke the camera and the feed got cut?” she heard Red say as he stood behind her, looking over her shoulder as she worked.

“Are you planning to make this all look like vandalism?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s the best excuse I can think of at the moment” Red shrugged looking at the data pad “the video editor in this thing should be good enough for that”

“Ok, give me a second and I’ll have it set” she said working on it before looking around her “but good luck making this look like your normal case of vandalism”

“We have our methods” Blue was already looking around scanning the area for opportunities to do just that.

After a couple of minutes of work she was done and after breaking the camera with a rock Brown brought them all back into the floor, the pillar of earth disappearing back into the ground “I’ll go fix the walls” she said moving into the building as Katie and the others moved back to the area where Matt and Lance where being treated, Red and Blue moving towards the machinery apparently planning to deface the machines even more to really sell the vandalism cover up.

Pink had finished healing Lance and had moved to giving Matt a check-up, Lance for his part had stood up and was looking for his shirt with Hunk’s help, Katie sat next to a now sitting Matt, Pink looking over his formerly broken arm “so dealt with the cameras already?” he said.

“Yeah, they asked me to make it look like someone broke the camera so the footage was lost”

“Did they really?” Pink raised an eyebrow “Blue usually deals with that, thank you for your help”

“We should be thanking you, you all saved our bacon back there” Matt rubbed the back of his neck saying that

“You don’t need to thank us, we just fulfilled our duties besides the clean-up is honestly just as hard as most fights” Pink looked apologetic as she let Matt’s arm go “I’m sorry we took so long to come”

“A beautiful lady in shining armour came to save us, I would be pretty angry if you didn’t wait to make the most dramatic entry possible” they turned to see Lance move towards them buttoning his shirt as he said that.

Pink laughed a bit relaxing “sorry to disappoint then, Red stole the entrance”

“Yes the dark knight rushes to save the vampire and even carries her like a princess out of danger” Lance turned to Katie “I’m seriously jealous of you”

“I was more focussed on the giant monster trying to kill me so I couldn’t enjoy it at all” she rolled her eyes with a small blush, getting saved like that while trying to avoid the giant fist wasn’t exactly her best moment.

“I’m just glad we all survived safe and sound, that was honestly terrifying” Hunk was rubbing his arm nervously “a-are we safe? We are right? You are not like going to arrest us or something?”

“Not at all, we will need you to answer a couple of questions about what happened here but that’s it” Pink assured them she looked behind her towards where Red was using a flaming sword to make it look like someone had used a welding tool to cut open the machines with Blue directing him to make it look realistic. Brown was walking towards them after fixing the walls.

“why don’t we start with the questions while the others finish their work” Pink asked them to relate the events of the night, what they had seen, if they recognized anyone or knew who the person doing the summoning was, Katie and the others explained the situation and answered all the questions she had until Blue and Red were finished and had joined them.

“So what’s the situation?” Red asked

“The summoner seems to be wearing the same robes as the other we dealt with tonight, there are 2 bodies inside the building” Pink pointed at the mall “aside from that they are ok, everyone was properly treated with his help” she said now pointing to Hunk “but they will need to rest and the vampire will probably need a lot of blood to recover his energy”

“I buried the bodies under the building, but kept the magic circle around, Blue said it was better for the cover up” Brown explained.

“I used a bit of magic to paint the walls with other designs this should be enough clean-up for now”

“My name is Matt, there are two vampires here” Matt pointed out while the others introduced themselves, Katie saw his fangs extending a bit, he was really thirsty.

“Just try to not drink everything we have, dad said blood prices here are a scam, even generic stuff is a few hundred credits” the colour gang, as she had decided to call them, looked at her when she spoke.

“I thought the normal blood types like O+ were free for vampires at any blood bank here” Brown said looking at the others.

“They are, it was part of the treaties” Pink was frowning “do you know what blood bank was you father buying at?”

Katie had to think for a moment, there were a few blood banks in the city the excuse being that since the city was so big it was better to have many sources for the hospitals to draw from in case of emergency.

“Community Blood Services” she finally said remembering her father’s rant about prices.

“That’s on Haken Street on the way to evergreen field park” Blue promptly said knowing its exact location just by name.

“I guess we will have to give them a visit later this week” the others nodded at Red’s words

“for now I think it would be prudent if we escorted you back to your homes, in case any more trouble happens we can make sure you are safe” Pink turned to Katie and her group, she could guess it was Pink’s way to apologize for not coming to save them sooner.

“It’s fi-”

“Red and I will take the siblings” Blue interrupted her before she could decline Pink’s offer

“Then I’ll help Hunk over here” Brown stood next to the mentioned boy.

“I guess I’ll help Lance then” Pink said walking away.

“W- Wait a minute are we sure we w” Red had grab her by the collar and was walking away too with Blue leading her brother.

“Come on, it’s late and we have to fill a report before we can sleep so let’s go” the man only let her collar go once they were outside of the construction site. Everyone seemed to understand that they couldn’t really say no to the offer so they left with their personal escorts/guards.

“I mean I have to drive my bike so good luck sis” Matt tried to get on his bike before Red forced him back on the ground.

“Your body may be fine but you are still in no shape to drive” Red said taking hold of the byke’s handle “I’ll push it while we walk”

The walk home was somewhat long but it was filled with small talk, Katie didn’t know how to feel about that, Red and Blue were clearly trying to not let themselves be known and stay anonymous yet they kept engaging in the talk, Blue more than Red but he would interject in the conversation from time to time.

She kept stealing glances at him, remembering the first moment she saw him, her life was passing through her eyes and the monster was bringing the beam down on her, then like some super hero Red had thrown his blade, slid next to her, grabbed her in a protecting manner and started burning the monster, it was like a scene from a young adult romance book where the heroine was saved by a knight in shining armour, **and she hated it**. Katie had always hated those books with weak heroines just waiting to be saved, she thought that in any such situation she would not only save herself but everyone else and there she was today, the man had time to ask if she was ok, looking at her with purple eyes filled with genuine worry before he ancestors dammed carried her bride style away from danger.

She repeated the scene thinking of all the ways she could have killed that thing herself, never let the situation escalate to that point, escape that final attack. Her general displeasure must had been written on her face because the next thing she heard was Red.

“Don’t let that fight bother you that much” Red was looking at her as they walked, letting Matt and Blue walk a couple of steps ahead of them.

“What?”

“Don’t let it bother you, it’s written all over your face” the mysterious man continued walking next to her.

“How? You all had to save us, we would have died and everything we tried was useless against that thing” she let her own thoughts escape without thinking.

“You heard Blue, it was resistant to all but the strongest metals, hottest fire and super charged electric currents” he explained “it was just a bad matchup”

“Still feels like I could have done more” she knew it wasn’t precisely a good idea to air her frustrations with her mysterious saviour

Red shook his head before looking at her again “as far as I understand it you and your friends are a group of teenagers with little to no training that stood their ground against a demon from the abyss” he looked forward towards Blue “a demon we trained people needed a full team to kill, no one in their right mind would call you all anything but impressive and most of the damage caused to it came from your plan didn’t it?”

Katie wasn’t entirely convinced but she understood what he meant, they never got any combat training from their parents much less at school, it didn’t make her feel much better but he was right.

“You did great” he said “your plan was good, with some training you people could have taken it down, so don’t let it eat you up, use it as a reason to get better”

She smiled at those words, yeah that was something she could get behind, yes she could have done better today and she **would** do better in the future, Katie started planning training sessions for once she convinced her parents to train them a bit, they were soldiers during the last blood wars, she was sure they could get them in shape.

“Maybe next time I’ll be the one that saves you” she smirked looking at him, she could swear he was smiling under that mask.

“Hehehehe not in a million years” he said but she didn’t feel any sarcasm in his voice, just playfulness.

The rest of the walk was filled with more chat until they were almost at their home, Red and Blue walked them almost to their door when the familiar barking of the family’s dog came, their bull terrier rushed out from the back yard, running around the house and jumping on Katie, making her fall on the grass as the dog licked her happy.

“Bae Bae s- stop!” she said between licks, after a couple of seconds of more licking she finally got to her feet looking at the colour gang “thanks for escorting us but we got a new guard”

Red had kneeled a slowly moved to pet Bae Bae, the dog was suspicious for a moment but soon was happily receiving the pets of the stranger, waggling her tail with gusto. She even tried to lick him but he kept her at bay “no no, I’m still working so the mask stays”

From the house they could hear the movement of people running to the door, soon their parents were out of the house looking at them, her dad left a sigh of relief as they both moved closer to her and Matt.

“Where have you 2 been?! Do you have any idea of how many times we called you?!” her mom was the first to talk walking closer with an angry look.

Katie took her phone looking at it, 45 missed calls. She forgot she had silenced her phone before, she looked at Matt who brought the destroyed remains of his phone out of his pocket “yeah Jr didn’t survive the battle” he said jokingly.

“Battle? Did you two get into a fight?” oh boy, her mom sounded even angrier.

“Ok so it’s a long story but we kind of ended up fighting a demon and it broke my phone and this guys saved us” Matt tried to explain the situation turning around to where Red and Blue had been standing just for them to see that no one was there anymore “where did they go?”

“Where did who go?” their dad finally spoke looking at them confused “I think you two will need to explain the situation to us”

Yeah it was about to be a long night for her and Matt.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* * *

**Arus today Press & Journal**

Issue 15,365 12•01•2086

_Providing local news and headlines since 1955_

**Galactic mall opening delayed, machinery destroyed at construction site during the night.**

~ _Article by Igor Brown, Photography © Bethany Tress ~_

* * *

At some point of last night the cameras guarding the construction site of the soon to be Galactic mall building were smashed to pieces, allowing the culprits entrance to the site undetected, where they proceeded to destroy all the machinery used by the construction workers, the event was reported by the workers of Reprocraft constructions early this morning.

Many of the materials for the construction were scattered and damaged all around the site with cement bags spilled, metal beams dropped from high altitudes as well as other damages to the area.

[ **Image Inset:** _a construction site covered in cement dust spilled from many bags, metal beams scattered on the ground leaving big holes on the floor around the building._ ]

Most distressing for the construction firm was the destruction of most of their machinery, the culprits seem to have used welding equipment to break apart the most of the equipment used by the workers like cranes, diggers and more, then proceeding to dig out the internal components of the machines and leaving them spilled on the floor.

[ **Image Inset:** _the side of a crane with a hole in the shape of a badly drawn circle on the side most of the inner components scooped out or melted much like the whole’s edges._ ]

“I asked Mr. Grey if he had hired proper security for the site, guess he is a ****** liar! This will cost us thousands to replace!” Burr Norris contractor from Reprocraft voiced his complains to the reporters once they got on site. The company had been assured by Sablan Grey, owner of the mall being constructed that he had prepare more than enough security for the area of construction and the equipment in it, in such a case Mr. Grey may be liable to cover all the damages.

When asked the police for comments they stated to have started an investigation on the area to find the culprits, and that given the equipment used during the night they recommend caution to the residents of the area and those who frequently passed through it. The construction site will be closed for the next 3 days while the police performs their investigation, before the police cordoned the area our correspondents were able to see some of the other damages, including the central room of the building.

[ **Image Inset:** _a big hall covered in paint of different colours, some graffiti picturing the words RAD and a kid in a hoody with horns, in the centre of the hall a pentagram inside of a circle painted on the ground. Surrounded by more paint and more graffiti of less quality_ ]

The room suggest this is the work of a new gang in the city, this time one with more arcane motifs, while Arus is by no means a city without crimes it is rare to see new gangs arise and cause this much damage during one night, here at Arus today we hope the police can return safety to the area as soon as possible.

* * *


	4. how little we know of the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait everyone, but it is finally out, chapter 4 is a bit more slow but i think is good, feel free to give me any feedback you want! \0/

* * *

**Altea high today**

Issue 256 12•01•2086

_Providing you with school gossip and news since 2054_

**New year, New students, New trouble same old school.**

~ _Article and Photography by Romelle Kogane ~_

Welcome everyone to this school year’s first issue of Altea high today, your local school news, first here at the news we would like to welcome the new students to our community, just like the head master said yesterday we hope you have a great time at this school.

Now onto the news, as we all know the entrance ceremony for the new students took place yesterday and like every year it began with the student council greeting the new students at the main gate.

[ **Image Inset:** _a big group of students listening to Allura and the rest of the student council, the photo seems to have been taken from an elevated position_ ]

The day continued with the volunteers alongside the student council giving the new members of our community a tour of the premises, from the main building to the labs and passing through the gym, as always trying to impress our new guys.

And impress them they did by the accounts of some of the new students, especially impressed by the labs and our school’s very own super stars, the president and vice president of the student’s council: Allura and Keith, now will they break their shattered hearts record this year or will the new students be more sensible than the old ones? No one knows but it will be very interesting to watch anyway.

[ **Image Inset:** _Lance, Pidge, Matt and Hunk smiling for the camera sitting at the auditorium, Hunk is trying to make himself as small as he can, which is obviously not working._ ]

But no one got everyone’s attention more than our headmaster Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe with his amazing speech and handsome moustache! And I’m not saying that just because he approves all our news reports before they are published. The head master spoke to the students about the values and duty that the school has set for itself and the hopes he and every other member of the community has for the new arrivals, in the case of the school news this hopes are for you to do as many news worthy things as possible people, so get to it!

[ **Image Inset:** _Coran standing on a podium addressing the students, introducing the rest of the teachers and school staff._ ]

And as the ceremony came to an end only thing left for the new students to do was to receive their personal data-pad and lockers, well that was the last formal thing they **had** to do, for the remainder of the day the various clubs and afterschool activities had set up demonstrations for the new students, the robotics teams had drones dancing rather anticlimactically a waltz, the chemistry team demonstrated the amazing powers of chemistry by putting on a show with different types of chemical reactions causing various different lights and even a bit of fireworks, gladly they did not blow up, again no one wants a repeat of last year.

[ **Image Inset:** _a group of small robots holding hands and dancing a romantic waltz to the rhythm of the music while in the background a light show of chemical reactions can be seen._ ]

Overall a total success, but the first day of school was not just a happy time, yesterday during the night the construction site of the Galactic mall was vandalized, the machinery destroyed, walls covered with graffiti, evil pentagram on the floor and the area in general completely desecrated. See the photos bellow for the details, our correspondents had to wake up super early to get any photos before the police closed the area.

[ **Image Inset:** _similar images to the ones in the main article of Arus today but taken in different angles._ ]

When questioned the police affirmed that the school news should not involve itself with this event, when pressed and bothered further the police gave us a small recount of what they know, at some point of the night around the 19 hours of the night a gang entered the premises and began their criminal activities.

The gang that we at Altea today have decided to call the “rad devils” due to the devil graffiti with the words “RAD” bellow it that was found in the area after it was vandalized, seems to be a new gang in town. Now due to the proximity of the construction site to our school, while our students are not the main suspects of the incident they do ask for our cooperation if needed but most importantly they ask the students at Altea high to be very careful at the hours of the night if they happen to be around the area and suggest that for next days the students leave directly to their homes just to be safe.

During a small interview before today’s classes the headmaster shared his thoughts on the matter with us.

[ **Video Inset:** _Coran sitting behind a desk, wearing a blue and white suit with grey gloves, he is playing with his moustache looking at the camera, behind him the sun can be seen barely rising ‘ah yes, the events of last night are quite distressing if I’m honest, such acts of thuggery being committed so close to our beloved school not only put in danger the building but most importantly our students’ he says setting his hands on the desk ‘that being said I have absolute trust on the authorities dealing with the problem so I’m sure it will be resolved soon’_ ] 

The student council also took the chance to ask the news to share a small message, they urge the students to seek them out in case they are having troubles both at school and outside of it, student council president Allura said “we don’t believe that any of our students took part of last night’s events but this can be quite distressing, not only that but if the streets are becoming more dangerous we wish to be there for our peers and we understand that sometimes it is easier to talk with fellow students than with teachers, so if anyone has any worry or trouble please come find us”

So here you have it, the official statement of the school, we trust the authorities and we our doors are open to you in case you need our help, remember to be careful and that here at Altea high we just hope you can have the best school year possible.

[ **Image Inset:** _Allura, Keith and Shay walking forward with a smile on their faces, the sun setting in the area showering them with orange light as they approach the camera._ ]

Happy new school year everyone!

* * *

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* * *

**Bandito Dorito**

Scroll for earlier messages.

Romelle Really? The rad devils?

That’s the best you came up with?

Look I was working against the clock.

And you have to admit that devil looks rad.

At least the police will be happy

You are finally running out of gang names.

You guys really need to stop destroying public

property.

It’s not my fault all we fight are maniacs or demons

Besides the police should be happy to have something

to work on.

Yeah you are probably a hero for them

And a terrible influence for the children.

Shouldn’t you be in class? I’m sure your

Teacher already got home.

:P

I’m taking a break,

Jamison is stuck in the traffic.

Lucky guy, I’m trying to sleep at

the council room.

Yeah you guys came home super late.

Mom took the chance to talk with me.

Happy bonding time?

She asked about you.

(・_・；)

Hey I’m not that tired, I’ll go see

What the others are up to.

You should talk to her, she thinks

they did something wrong and you are angry

……..and she thinks that why?

Because someone is not even eating breakfast

With us, or is coming home late.

I’m just trying to help, Keith is barely

Sleeping with him helping mom and all

Actually mom needs to sleep too.

Sis they are practically plants! they don’t

really need to sleep.

He still should sleep, is good for his

brain.

So do you! Just try to not avoid our

family ok?

Fine fine, I’m getting tired of sleeping

3 hours a day anyway.

Good luck with Jamison.

* * *

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Katie and Matthew Holt dragged themselves through the hallways of Altea high, tiredly wobbling as they reached for their lockers, last night’s events didn’t end for them when they got home, no, her parents took them inside the house as soon as they realized Red and Blue had disappeared, which by the way she considered **very** rude and would complain as much as she could next time they met.

After Matt raided their fridge for almost all of their blood, how does one person drink 4 days’ worth of blood in 20 minutes? You get said person almost killed by a demon. A strange event that her parents did not appreciate learning Katie and her brother had taken part of. The recounting of the events that transpired last night went well into the early morning specially when her mom decided to start interrupting every other sentence to scold them for being reckless fools that had seen enough horror movies to know going into the building was a bad idea.

At the end of the explanation they were grounded, well more for their safety than any form of punishment, their parents decided that if demons were appearing they better be going home as soon as school ended, they seemed confused when she mentioned red and blue. Apparently colour coded masked magic super heroes that disappear when someone’s parents appears were not something neither her mom or dad were aware was a thing in this city.

On the bright side her dad had decided he would buy more blood tomorrow, and ask more about the treaties the owner was breaking robbing them blind with the prices, hopefully her dad would forget about manners and being nice and let her hack into the guy’s systems to get some payback. She did not have much success getting her parents to start training them.

“I don’t think we should encourage fighting demons; they are plenty capable of running away if they are not acting like lemmings running to a cliff” her mom had said, her dad had seen Katie’s side of the argument better and things settled on just enough training to be able to run away from the next demon they encounter.

But coming back to reality Katie and her brother had made it to their lockers without noticing, they were too tired to actually pay attention to their motions and she had a giant headache, looking to her side as she opened her locker her eyes locked on Matt who had his own eyes suspiciously closed, wa- was he sleep? Was he really sleep and opening his locker? How? Is that some sort of magic?

*Bam*

A loud clank sounded right next to her ear, she grabbed her head as her headache started to sting like claws piercing her brain, if this is what a hangover felt like, Katie swore to never drink even a drop of alcohol in her life. She looked to the side, a hand had slammed into the next locker, she followed the brown hand to a blue shirt with waves stamped on it, looking at her wearing sun glasses was Lance, grinning.

“finally, we’ve been calling you for a while” he said moving back and standing next to Hunk who was looking as dead as she was feeling and was holding his head too.

“could you be less loud? My head is killing me” Hunk winced looking at Lance.

“come on is not that bad” Lance turned to her and her now awake brother, she needed to learn how to move while sleeping like him. “sooo you guys want to eat lunch together?”

Lance leaned forward and whispered to loud enough for only them to hear “Hunk has something to tell us about yesterday” Katie raised an eyebrow looking at the giant mage who looked a bit nervous, peeking over his shoulder as if someone was following him.

“let’s meet up at the yard, near the trees, away from people” Hunk whispered nervously.

With that the school bell rang and everyone split up, going to their own classes, in her case English class, good, if she sat in the back she could sleep a bit.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well her plan had backfired, unlike what she had imagined the fact that she had skipped 2 years was still cause of surprise apparently even here that wasn’t common, scratch that specially here that wasn’t common, this is a school for the elite supposed to basically guarantee you a place in the best universities of… well basically everywhere, at least everywhere in the world where Altea and Marmora weren’t branded as some evil corporation or something, so their courses are a lot harder than normal. Which meant that the teachers were to keep an eye on her performance.

She had tried her best to sleep during English class and to her credit she managed to sleep for more than half of the class, sadly she didn’t know her teacher was some sort of fricking cyborg or something, Miss Mercer threw some chalk to her sleeping head so hard it disintegrated, she didn’t even know where the chalk came from the school used holographic board for ancestor’s sake! So now her headache was way worse, which didn’t help during science class.

She was really glad Keith was there during the class, his sit was right behind her and he kept her awake during the class, also helped her when her fried brain wasn’t working properly, which she enjoyed because despite how tired she was, science class with Professor Rayner was incredibly fun and interesting, she was really glad Keith helped her through it.

Now she was walking with Lance and Matt who she met in the cafeteria while getting her lunch before they headed towards the yard to talk with Hunk, walking down the path, burger in her hands as they walked, a flash came from their side, it wasn’t pointed at them but she still turned, at their side Romelle was taking photos of some students playing in the yard, Romelle turned looking for another photo to take when she saw them.

“hey hey!” Romelle smiled as she approached, her smile being replaced by winced face as she looked at them “jeez you guys look like corpses, also” her hand motioned to the shades Lance was wearing “I hope you are not using those indoors, because that seems incredibly impractical”

“it’s fine, I can see well enough” was all the answer he gave her.

“gonna guess you look just like them but the makeup and the shades hide it” Romelle patted him on the shoulder, unlike Katie and her group she looked totally refreshed, internally she cursed a bit everyone that had a good night of sleep yesterday “what were all of you doing?” Romelle raised an eyebrow looking at all of them.

“yeah, we were playing games late yesterday” Matt came up with a lie just in time for her to not get suspicious “and what are you doing?”

“just taking some photos on my way to the student council room” she said taking a photo of them “I will call this one the attack of the living dead” she laughed.

“oh you guys eat lunch there?” Katie asked

“yup, it makes it easy for people to find us, especially after last night” Romelle put her camera down looking at them “did you guys read the article? I’m quite proud of it”

“yeah, having gangs this close is kind of scary,” Lance said awkwardly “but we better go eat our lunch before the break is over”

“yeah that is a good idea, remember if you guys are worried or have any info on the case don’t think twice about coming to the council” Romelle waved them off as Lance and the others moved forward.

They moved closer to the trees in the yard, under the shade of one of those trees, sitting on a bench was Hunk, who still looked way too paranoid for her liking, focusing on him, looking at his blood flow, his heart was beating way too fast.

“hey buddy, are you feeling ok?” Lance was the first one to speak sitting next to him worried.

“oh hey guys, you are here!” he scooted over making space for her as Matt sat on the grass next to them “where you followed?” Hunk’s eyes were darting from side to side.

“followed?” she asked

“yeah, anyone followed you?”

“not that I am aware of”

“good good good” he took deep breaths

“Hunk, man what is going on? You don’t look ok” Matt interjected

Taking a final, very deep breath “did you guys explain what happened to your parents?”

“didn’t have much of a choice, even if I got healed everything I was wearing got thorn and most of my stuff was broken” Matt responded.

“same here, my sister almost killed me” Lance added.

“yeah did your parents know anything about the guys that saved us?” Hunk looked at them a bit worried.

“nope, sis didn’t know anything” Lance ate some of his food while answering.

“our parents didn’t know anything neither; we haven’t been properly introduced to the court so our access to information is limited” Katie explained to the no vampires in the conversation, a vampire court was the congregation of vampires in a city, usually lead by a prince and their family, the most powerful vampires in the area. And well, vampires were even more secretive than many other kinds, so getting info about a place before being introduce properly to the local court was hard.

“my parents didn’t know anything neither but they called someone, they have some friends in the mage’s circle here, she explained a bit of it, she said that we could get a better explanation next time at the mage’s circle since it was a hard topic” hunk explained the situation “and well, by what he said Brown and the others may be evil and try to brainwash us or kill us or something else super bad” Hunk looked at them nervously.

“yeeeeaaahhh buddy I’m going to have to doubt that, they saved our asses” Lance rested an arm on the bench’s back leaning on it “I don’t think they would do that just to kill us later”

“I hate to agree with him but Lance is right” she agreed.

“ok maybe not that but they are dangerous”

“Hunk, please just explain what you know ok? We are kind of out the loop here” Matt tried to refocus the conversation.

“ok so I don’t know all the details but the gist of what they told us is that they are called the arbiters, they kind of just showed up one day, forced everyone to play nice and sign the Voltron treaties, basically a bunch of rules so things don’t escalate between the factions” Hunk started “and now they make sure everyone keeps following the rules”

“so they are like supernatural police?” Lance seemed almost disappointed by Hunk’s words “that’s not bad at all”

“yeah that honestly sounds like a good thing, why are you so worried?” Matt added.

“because as far as my parent’s friend said when people cause a lot of trouble the arbiters may…. You know, make them disappear” the big magician explained playing with his food, a perfectly made lunch box “and for what we heard the whole process of getting everyone to sign the treaties wasn’t really peaceful”

“how so?” Katie asked.

“according to them, the arbiters came one day, basically destroyed everyone, forced them to sign the treaties and now keep them in check” Hunk finally said

“by destroyed everyone you mean…..” Matt started to ask.

“I mean half the vampire court in the city got burned to ashes and well, everyone got a similar treatment” the words sent a shiver down her spine, yup that was bad and really scary, looking around everyone was a little paler than before.

“ok that’s really bad” Lance exclaimed what everyone was thinking.

“yeah, and they are like ghosts or something, they appear everywhere and no one knows how” Hunk continued. That explained the paranoia, Katie caught her gaze drifting towards the rest of the campus, the other students, the teachers, yeah she understood why he was so worried, for a moment everyone around her was suspicious, every action looked fake, every gaze in their direction was someone spying on them.

“fuck, I mean they saved us, if they were about to do anything they would have done it there, or they just would let that monster kill us and then deal with it” Lance argued.

“they did follow us home, maybe we are just to be under surveillance?” Matt tried to bring them to a compromise, an idea that could reconcile the fact that they were saved and that their saviours could be incredibly dangerous people.

“yeah, hopefully is just that” Katie said not feeling reassured.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allura stood in front of a mirror, she was inside the student council room she was currently reapplying her makeup, a special kind of makeup she made herself, a base similar to her skin, a bit of Altean alchemy and a couple of herbs and voila, a magical makeup that was undetectable, is water proof and makes it so that absolutely no one can notice the giant bags under her eyes. Honestly she knew applying it again was completely unneeded but she wanted to be extra sure, they needed to look in perfect condition.

After applying the makeup, she walked to her desk, where Keith had left her a seventh energy drink they were waiting for their lunch, which honestly always seemed to be a bit too extravagant so none of them liked eating outside of this room, her father had asked the cooks to always bring them the best food possible, so while the normal lunch that could be found at the cafeteria was varied and delicious, it still couldn’t compare to having served things like roasted duck amongst other things.

No one complained about having great food they all knew the chefs were professionals and most importantly were just trying to keep their jobs. She hated that part of her life if she was honest, because of who she was and who her father was, a lot of people were afraid of them in many ways specially her father’s employees. Shaking her head pushing those thoughts away, she focussed on her friends in the room. Everyone was tired because of yesterday, the demon that attacked the new students was just one of three, they had to rush their fights with each one, create cover up stories for the events that couldn’t be hidden entirely, write reports, prepare the school’s response to the events and that was just their team, Allura and Keith had also to stay around to receive a briefing about what the other teams had been up to during the night.

Shay was laying on the couch sleeping, her skin almost covered in rocks and pebbles as she had removed her disguise to feel more comfortable. She understood the feeling, Allura wanted to just fall asleep too but she was the kind to not wake up until fully rested and that probably would be tomorrow. Allura looked at Keith who looked and acted as fresh as a rose in the morning, no makeup no tiredness and even less sleep than any of them got. She couldn’t help but feeling jealous, altean alchemy was an incredible ability but being able to just take a sun bath and be filled with energy would be very nice.

Romelle had joined them recently, she was currently taking pictures of Allura’s pet mice, the five of them, who were inside of a small doll house a mini version of the student council room, the mice were mimicking their actions, one drinking from a tiny can, other lying in a mini couch other taking photos and finally one standing behind the desk looking through a tiny window in the same brooding superhero pose Keith usually made without thinking, Romelle had her earphones on.

“I met Matt and the others while I was coming” Romelle broke the comfortable silence.

“oh how did they look?” Allura asked opening her energy drink and taking a sip.

“like walking corpses, no magical makeup for them sadly” Romelle answered making Keith chuckle a bit “they also seem to have heard of us” Allura raised an eyebrow at that.

“I put a mic on Lance, let’s just say they got the less flattering version of the events that happened when the treaties were made” Romelle said, that explained the earphones, she usually preferred to have her music play out loud when taking photos in the room. “they seem to be worried we will do something to them or their families”

“I mean, you are spying on them, so I can’t really blame them” Keith interjected.

“don’t act like you weren’t curious about what they would do” Romelle said and Keith shrugged.

“well hopefully they will feel less threatened after we deal with the blood bank trouble” Allura said “also maybe you should stop eavesdropping on them it is very rude”

“Also makes us look like the bad guys!” Shay said raising an arm from the couch, seems their conversation woke her up.

“yeah, it is for the best” Keith said making some signs to Romelle, telling her to record the conversation, Allura rolled her eyes, did he really believe she couldn’t understand that? They invented those signs when they were seven.

“anyway about the blood bank” Allura chose to change the subject, the Kogane siblings weren’t ones to be stopped from their antics easily and she was too tired to try “Koran said he would send some people to speak with the owner this afternoon, do we want to tag along?”

“no/no/no” the unanimous response came almost instantly much to her enjoyment, she was indeed interested in the new students, specially the group that survived meeting a demon in combat, that being said, any interest they had on them was outweighed by everyone’s desire to sleep or just rest in general.

“I’ll just tell Bano to go and make sure the owner gets the message” Keith said nonchalantly, taking his phone and sending a message probably to the man he just mentioned, yeah he really wasn’t in the mood for work today if he was sending people by name. at that moment the doors to the room opened, their food had arrived. Everyone smiled and moved towards the couches and the coffee table in the room, Allura’s mice jumping down from the doll house and standing in the table waiting for the meal.

As the food was served and everyone began to eat Allura looked at her friends and smiled, this times, were her friends, her family were all together and smiling, this were the most precious moments for her. So to hell with the work they earned a rest, she could ask Koran to cover for them just for today while she had fun with them. She quickly sent a message to the ginger haired man and continued eating even if she knew they would have to take some extra classes later.

They ate the delicious food, the mice put on a small show all of them jumping and doing pirouettes like in a small circus show, as tired as they were, everyone had a good time, laughing and smiling. The weariness had caught up with Keith apparently as he was finally struggling to stay awake next to her, at the end of the whole thing they ended up skipping the last half of the school day, Romelle had given up and was sleeping on the couch, Shay having fallen asleep on the rug.

Looking outside the window a thick layer of dark clouds had covered the sun, Allura smiled at least that meant Keith would get a real rest for now, even if his body could work well as long as it got some sunlight, no mortal brain was made to support nonstop working, as the rain began to fall, thick heavy drops falling making a soothing noise, like if the world had started a lullaby for them, Allura closed her eyes, letting herself rest against the couch drifting into sleep as Keith lost his own battle against sleep, she felt a head fall on her shoulder as her consciousness drifted away.

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By the time they all woke up, the rain was well on its way and had no signs of stopping, heavy rain falling down on the school, and apparently everyone had already gone home or was getting ready to leave after their club activities. Allura had woken up with Keith resting on her shoulder, Romelle had rolled off the couch and fell on Shay who did not wake up with that.

She stayed there, letting them all rest for a little longer, just enjoying their company until a knock came from the door, when no one answered the door flew open with a loud bang, revealing a red haired man with a moustache, prominent cheekbones and a smile on his face. He clapped his hands forcing everyone awake.

“come on people, this is no place to sleep!” Koran said with a jolly expression.

“Koran have I told you how much I hate you?” Romelle said still laying down on top of Shay.

“more often than you would think!” Koran’s smile did not falter “now get ready to go, I did cover up for your classes but if you are going to sleep you should do it in real beds”

They groaned but they cleaned the room, did a bit of paperwork and got ready to leave themselves all under Koran’s watch. As they moved, towards the entrance where their transports were waiting, umbrellas in their hands walking forward Allura looked to the side, at the entrance of the main building she saw a small girl, she probably only reached up to Allura’s chest, the girl was wearing green and baggy clothes, green and white sports shoes and her face was one that could only belong to an incredibly tired person. Everyone’s eyes followed Allura’s, they smiled at each other and approached the girl.

“Katie!” Romelle waved as they walked towards her and the green vampire looked at them and gave them a small nod.

“hey guys” Pidge how Katie also liked to be referred said once they got close. “I thought everyone was gone already, had a lot of work in the council?”

“yeah we had to do a lot of paperwork for the various club’s finances” Allura lied. Well they had to do that, they just didn’t do it yet.

“and you? Shouldn’t you go home?” Shay asked.

“I’m just waiting for the rain to stop, I forgot my umbrella and before you say it, I refuse to get on Matt’s bike when he is not well rested, I enjoy being alive” Pidge explained

“and your parents?” it was Keith’s turn to question.

“dad took the car so I will have to wait until he is out of work for him to come get me, no taxies, I’m saving for a few materials to upgrade my computer” Katie stated like it was completely reasonable to just wait here for hours to save some credits.

Keith shook his head and sighed “ok, I guess we are giving you a ride”

“oh there is no ne- “ Katie couldn’t finish her sentence before Keith grabbed her by the collar, put the her under the umbrella and began dragging her towards the entrance “Hey I said there is no need”

“everyone is leaving, even the headmaster is leaving” he pointed at Koran who had stayed near the entrance waiting for them “and you heard the police, staying here alone is dangerous” Keith keep pushing her forward covering her from the rain with his umbrella.

Allura smiled at the scene, no matter how much of a bad boy he tried to be, or how uncouth he could act when talking to other people, he always would be a soft and nice guy on the inside.

“it’s truly fine Katie, the limos are large for a reason, so don’t worry” Allura tried to help, they walked together to the entrance where two limousines and a family car were waiting for them. Shay’s parents had come to get her, they said their good byes, a small hug with each other and Allura got into her limousine with Koran.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Samuel Holt was currently a bit peeved, honestly he was quite frustrated. It had been two days since the night his children came back home so late at night it was technically morning, they explained the situation. Remembering the talk made him grip the car’s wheel with force, a demon attacked them and by what Matt and Katie said, they would have died if not for a mysterious group of people, a group of people of which he knew annoyingly little.

It was honestly what he hated the most about the vampire courts, the secrecy. He understood the reason why every court was so secretive, secrets had kept the vampire kind alive for far longer than it had many other kinds, it was their way of living and surviving. Secrets helped every supernatural kind but vampires, for a long time were everyone’s enemies, mostly due to the need to devour other’s blood to survive. This made it so they had to guard their secrets with more zeal than others.

What he knew about the ‘arbiters’ as everyone seemed to call them amounted to what little he managed to get out of a couple of vampires working at Altea, which wasn’t much, just that they came sometime after both Marmora and Altea had entered the city and started to work here, it made some people suspicious of the companies but if not one but two global companies were involved with them they assumed it would be easier to know, on account of them trying similar stuff in every city where they were present.

Everything else he learned was in essence the same his children had learned from one of their friends, well their friend’s family. It was one of the reasons why he usually tried to be friendly with other kinds, specially the mage’s circles they were better for him, as a man of science and academic pursuits he always felt more welcomed in their environment. It was like a big university, everyone was so eager to talk and share knowledge about their investigations. But alas, he tried to refocus his thoughts, what they managed to gleam of the boy’s words is pretty much the same as he learned, whoever the arbiters truly were, they had arrived at the city, fought everyone one by one and forced them to agree to the treaties.

Suspicious and annoying, but not everything was bad, honestly there was a lot to be happy about. His job was almost a dream come true, the laboratories at Altea were the stuff of legends for him, and his peers were some of the best so he could keep improving the designs of his engine.

Even if Colleen still didn’t find a job she liked, she would never accept anything that wasn’t research on a good lab, she was having a lot of fun here, Colleen had met a very nice woman during one of her outings and they were becoming friends, meeting up at a café that from what he was able to piece together, probably was owned by the parents of one of Katie and Matt’s friends.

That was another really nice things, Katie had friends, or well was starting to make friends, they were becoming Matt’s friends too but Matt never had much trouble making at least passing friends for a time, Katie on the other hand was never good at social interactions, apparently they were even being friends with the student council of Altea high, which came as a surprise specially when yesterday Katie came home on a limousine probably worth more than their house, apparently the two of the members gave her a ride.

But even with all the good and the bad, one thing was true, Samuel Holt was really frustrated, and he needed to let out some steam, so he was going to use something he learned to get said steam out, while the knowledge of the arbiters was guarded by the court, probably so no spies could know how much the court truly knew about them, but the treaties were easy to find, one of his co-workers even gave him an electronic copy for him to read and indeed, he had been scammed when buying blood before, so now right after work he was driving towards the blood bank ‘Community Blood Services’ to yell and hopefully punch the owner.

As his car turned around the corner not too far away from the blood bank situated in the fairly unused Haken street, he remembered the owner, a man named Maurice, a man with languid physic, front teeth that rivalled his fangs, brown hair styled in a bob cut that honestly gave bad name to anyone using the same cut, eyes that denoted utter contempt for whoever they looked at. He didn’t trust the man for a second specially with that annoyingly high pitched voice that made everything he said sound like a lie. Sam honestly thought he should have never bought his blood there, but it was a blood bank directly on the way to his home and seemed convenient, a bit mistake.

As he felt himself starting to feel even more annoyed he finally reached his destination, parking his car he got out of the vehicle, closing it behind him and approached the building, heavy doors welcoming him as he entered. But the sight inside was not what he expected.

Last time he visited the place had the clean atmosphere and almost oppressive mood of any other medical facility, now? Well there were posters hanging from the walls, a small neon light on the counter, lava lamps and more. He approached the counter which was empty, rang the bell and waited.

From a door behind the counter came a man he did not recognize, completely tanned skin which was weird because getting a tan was usually equal to dying for a vampire, sunglasses even inside the building, blonde hair and a white smile, young and smooth features as he wore an open shirt with palm trees stamped on it, the shirt was open showing his abdominals, it was honestly the picture of every surfer bro in a beach movie.

“Hey hey brosky! What can old Ken do for you bro?!” he said opening his arms and looking at Samuel.

It took him a couple of seconds to process this and he decided that the best he could do was confirm where he was “this is the ‘Community Blood Services’ blood bank right?”

“yeah dude, we are it! Giving blood to the bros!”

Samuel frowned “this is the ‘Community Blood Services’ run by a man named Maurice right?”

“oh not bro, no Maurices here” the man called Ken said.

“then it isn’t the ‘Community Blood Services’ or is there another ‘Community Blood Services’ in the area?” Sam asked

“nope, we are the only ones here, Maurice is just not the owner anymore” Ken finally explained “why you needed him?”

Well that took the air off Sam’s sails, a bit more dejected than he imagined he decided to just get the blood for his family and go home “my name is Samuel Holt, I bought some blood here before, for….. special needs you know? I wanted to ask Maurice for some explanations about prices”

“Oh shit! You are Mr. S?!” Ken said pointing at him with a smile “why didn’t you say that sooner bro? here I got your stuff I need to thank you for getting me this job”

“my stuff?” Samuel was confused “sorry got you the job? What?” he kept asking as Ken went back through the door he had come through, leaving it open and the sound of bags and boxes being moved came

“oh yeah, you are the guy that Maurice scammed and then got him captured by the arbiters right?” Ken’s voice came from the other room “they don’t like it when people break important rules in the treaties, so they dealt with that fast”

After a couple of minutes Ken came back with a big box, putting it on the counter he opened it showcasing its contents to Samuel, blood a lot of blood, about double the order he had asked the first time he came to this building.

“here you go, the same order from last time and a bit of an extra, super special stuff, like AB here” Ken said showing one bag to him.

“i- I don’t need this much or this expensive”

“that’s the best part, its free! Think of it as the bank’s apology for last time, you technically already paid for most of it last time so just take it” Ken smiled a bit more widely, showing his fangs and proving he was indeed a vampire.

“well if you are sure”

“absolutely, take it bro! just come back later to buy more bro!” Ken pushed the box in his hands.

Looking at him, Samuel analysed the words said and something didn’t really sit well, so he decided to ask “how did the ‘arbiters’ deal with this?”

“oh that, so like all I know is my bro Bano, got called to come deal with it, and he told me they would need a new owner here to keep the business going because, well the vampire bros need blood and it’s better if they aren’t hunting human bros for that” Ken began “so Bano told me ‘Yo bro you want to run a blood bank?’ and I said ‘yeah bro I want to’ and he told me to come and start getting the place ready he is dealing with the paperwork”

“and what about Maurice?” Sam asked

“oh sorry bro but I gotta tell you, Maurice ain’t with us no more” Ken said getting a bit more solemn.

Well fuck, was all Samuel could think of at the moment, if the arbiters eliminated him, maybe Katie’s friend had more reason to be paranoid than he initially imagined.


	5. to learn a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, first i'm sorry for the wait, honestly it took me a while to find a way to make the exposition a bit more interesting, but it is out, a bit shorter than usual but i think it came out nice, hope you guys like it.

“what do you mean he is not with us anymore?” Samuel decided that, when talking with Ken, it was better to be direct and get confirmation “is he dead? Like sun death dead?”

“oh I got no idea bro, no one told me” Ken shrugged “I only know that Bano took him away yesterday and like, my bro said Maurice wouldn’t be coming back here”

“that sounds like he is dead”

“maybe? I’m not sure what they do with people, sometimes you never see people again but honestly a lot of times they are not people you want to see again” Ken explained “Bano doesn’t tell me much”

“and that Bano guy is like, seriously part of them? I thought they were a secret group” Samuel decided to ask in case that Bano guy was not an arbiter but some random murderer.

“oh yeah he is, no one really cares about me saying it for some reason, I think they don’t believe me” Ken mussed setting a new lava lamp on the counter.

“and you are not worried something could happen?” Sam raised an eyebrow

“nope, my bro is not like super strong, but he is always with super strong people so he is super safe” the fact that Samuel was worried more for Ken’s life and not his friend’s seemed to escape Ken.

“and you are not worried about him, you know making you disappear?” Samuel decided to be clear with him.

“not-at-all my bro!” Ken gave him a smile “my cousin wouldn’t let him and Bano is a real bro, so he is no dangerous”

“that’s good to hear” Sam nodded “in that case, I’ll be taking my leave, se-“ Samuel stopped and thought for a second “hope to see you next time I buy here”

“you got it bro!” Ken waved him off.

Leaving the building and getting to his car, he put the blood box in the back of the car and started driving home, this was strange and worrying. As far as he understood, the information about Maurice breaking the rules had been delivered to the arbiters just two days ago, but the man was already gone and a replacement was in place, that spelled trouble to him. It meant they were incredibly efficient and most likely ruthless in their approach to keeping the treaties, Samuel decided that maybe it was time to start making friends in the city, starting for the parents of Katie’s group of friends, few things kept you safer than good friends, ha had learned this during the last blood war.

With that decision made, he drove home calmly and with a smile just like always, the drive to his house from the blood bank wasn’t long, so he was soon at his door. Entering the house and calling “I’m home”, leaving his coat on a rack near the entrance he carried the box to the living room where he saw his children Katie and Matt lying on the couch in front of the TV, holding controllers as they played a fighting game. Matt looked up and waved at him.

“hey dad” Katie didn’t stop looking at the screen. “how was your day?”

“any demon attacks?” Matt joked.

“just boring lab work, we had to redesign some of the code for one of the projects assigned to our lab” Sam left the box on the table in front of the couch “and before you ask, no, I can’t let you see the project just yet”

“I mean you shouldn’t show us the project but technically nothing is stopping you” Katie argued.

“good try, still no” he walked towards them “where is your mom?”

“she is at a restaurant buying dinner, apparently a small chat over some coffee with her new friend translates to out for like 5 hours” Matt frowned as he focussed on the game, he was losing badly.

“it’s nice that she is having fun” he decided to sit with the children and maybe have fun messing with Matt once he loses.

“what’s on the box?” Katie asked.

“oh I went to the blood bank” he opened the box to show the contents “this is what I got”

“please tell me you didn’t pay as much as before” Matt looked at the bags “isn’t this premium stuff? This must have costed a fortune”

“didn’t pay one credit for it, it was all free”

“you robbed the man?” Katie asked excited. Shaking his head Samuel decided to explain the situation.

“so the guy is just dead?” Matt asked

“I don’t know, he may just have gone into hiding but it is strange” Sam responded “hey kids, it won’t be at least until next month that we are introduced to the court, do you think your friend could ask his parents to let us into their talk about the arbiters with their friend?”

“yeah I’ll ask Hunk tomorrow morning” Katie promised.

“I’m home!” Colleen called from the door and they went to receive her, she was holding a strangely ornate bag of what smelled like food, Samuel gave her a kiss and helped her with serving the food. He checked the contents, in an equally ornate box was Olkarian food, he smiled it had been a while since they tasted the food of his homeland. Taking a more detailed look he also saw the logo of the restaurant “La-sai’s delight” he had to do a double take looking at the contents, the perfectly cooked meat, the spices, the everything.

“honey how much did this cost? No scratch that, how did you even get this? I didn’t even know La-sai’s packed food for take away”

“oh, when we were about to come home Krolia called the restaurant and had them deliver it to the store we were at, so it’s her treat why?” Colleen said with a smile. of course she didn’t know she was Cerberian true and true, he on the other hand had researched the best Olkari restaurants in the city and La-sai’s was world class.

“well remind me to thank her, because I don’t think we will be eating this a lot” he finished setting dinner up and sat to eat, they all had a very pleasant meal, but Samuel couldn’t help but wonder what kind of friend his wife had just made.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Krolia was, currently, unbelievably, incredibly, impossibly and outlandishly bored. She loved her work and running the company and all of its more secretive operations could be quite interesting, but right now she was not doing anything really interesting nor important. She was sitting behind her desk, mountains of paperwork to read and fill, the most tedious work she had and she couldn’t even leave all the tedious work to Ulaz, she had done that a couple of days ago so she could have some free time to meet up with Colleen.

As she mindlessly worked her mind drifted to how she met the woman, a few days ago after work while Alex was driving her home, Ulaz tagging along so they could review the final notes on their new drone designs, they were supposed to be able to help in search and rescue efforts in case of catastrophes and natural disasters for the Taujerian government.

They had made drones before for general purposes and specially the use of public officials, police aid, general citizen use and more, but this was different since they needed to handle extreme weather conditions no matter what they were, she had exaggerated a bit when talking with her team of designers and said it needed to survive being submerged into magma if the users so much wished to put them there, she was not going to fail this kind of contract, she had never failed and she would never do it. The future was clear in that with the right encouragement her team and Slav would be able to come with the perfect product as always.

During their talks she got the idea to get Bander some sweet rolls, Keith would love some chocolate mousse and not forget cookies for Romelle, maybe that will cheer her up, she probably was a bit down at home and that was why she left home so early, even if it only helped just a tiny bit Krolia had wanted to make her children happy.

Once she asked the driver, a young man named Alex, to look for a place to buy such food Ulaz jokingly mocked about being too tired to go out of the car to buy the pastries for her, of course, joke or not, no Kogane would just let that challenge slide. So after telling him to rest and once the Alex had found a small cafe where he saw what she wanted on a display, Krolia left the limousine and went in, despite Ulaz’s protest. She was the CEO of one of the biggest technological companies in the world how hard could buy some groceries be.

Well it resulted to be quite hard, at least for her, ordering the food was easy enough, just be friendly but resolute, like any other conversation. No, the problem came with paying for the pastries, once she tried to pay with her own private data terminal (a more customized version of data pad connected to specific people) it was rejected, something Krolia thought preposterous, her credit being rejected was as if Marmora itself went bankrupt. Well in short the security systems in her bank account were set to stop transactions too out of her ordinary unless she inputs a special password, in case someone, somehow got through her security and managed to use her account to buy an island or something. They did not take into account transactions that were too small, which in this case set off the security systems.

But Krolia was not to be undeterred, if electronic transactions couldn’t be made she would rely on hard and cold cash, as archaic as it was she always had a few bill in her wallet. This didn’t work neither, she had cash quite a few bills, thousand credit bills, of course it was way more that the pastries costed and the nice couple running the place didn’t have the change on hand and they were too good to accept that much money “I would be robbing you, madam” the husband had said. The next minutes were about her and the couple discussing why they had to accept the money and that she didn’t need it.

For a moment it looked like she would have to go back and ask Ulaz for the exact change or a smaller bill, and while Ulaz wasn’t only her assistant but her friend, she knew he wouldn’t let her live this down. Once she prepared to go out to Ulaz someone tapped her shoulder, a nice woman, of pale skin and short brown hair the woman smiled to her and offered to pay for her since it wasn’t much. Krolia wasn’t someone to accept charity but it was better than to go back and ask Ulaz, after accepting she asked the woman to take the bill the owners didn’t accept. “just buy me a coffee here one of this days and we will be even” was all the answer she got, they introduced each other and Krolia set a meeting for the next day and after that they had other meetings just for fun, it didn’t look like Colleen knew who she was or at least recognized her but it was better than people not trying to approach her.

Honestly while she was a good seer, probably the best she enjoyed this kind of chance encounter and made a point to not just see the future constantly, visions would come and go randomly without her control, that was the nature of foresight. But unless she was working or worried for any reason she didn’t want to just spoil the little things in her life. Nor did she wished to invade he children’s privacy by looking into their futures too often, reason why she still didn’t exactly know why Romelle had been leaving so early.

Snapping back to reality she continued her work, the form she was filling at the moment was more interesting than the others, if only for the fact that it had to do with her youngest son, Bander’s medical reports, she frowned looking at it.

“Ulaz you know this shouldn’t be put with all the other menial paperwork” she showed the paper to him

“I knew we would be going through most of it today; you would see it faster than if it was separated like the rest of your personal correspondence” he explained looking at it.

“anything new or important” she asked as she began to inspect carefully every word in the text.

“nothing sadly, the test shows the usual results so nothing bad at least, but Alfor says that the research is as slow as ever, no new developments. No cure yet”

Ulaz’s words while being what she expected it still made her feel a pang of sadness. It meant that for the foreseeable future her son would never be able to leave the house, still they would continue looking. A seer learns that sometimes there are some unavoidable futures: death, natural disasters, strangely also bad traffic. All those futures and fates were usually unavoidable and every seer had to make their peace with them.

Many had told Krolia that Bander’s future was as inevitable as those, she spat on their faces of course, they had same the same before thinking he would die before being ten years old, and yet he was alive and here with them after enough hard work from her and everyone’s part. So she was sure that there was a future for him to live free, she just had to look hard enough.

“we have time; we just need to continue the research” Krolia finished dealing with those papers and went back to the pile, overall nothing interesting until she reached the papers for a relocation, of one Maurice Harlan, under Keith’s orders, well apparently he just sent one of the people working for them in a more direct and discreet manner to deal with a blood bank breaking the treaties, Bano had decided that it was better to permanently relocate the former owner. Oh yes it had come to light that Maurice was breaking more than a few laws in the treaties and as such was immediately relieved of his position as the owner of the bank.

Krolia frowned reading the reports, of course Keith sent Bano, the man is as reckless and impetuous as her son, and of course he took it upon himself to decide what to do with the now former owner of the bank. She could feel the headache coming, Griffith is going to be a pain in the ass and of course they had to pay for the business, make the official work and all the tedious parts of this mess, it wouldn’t be too hard to be honest but she needed to get into Keith’s head that dealing with a problem swiftly was not the same as dealing with it smoothly. Even if they could deal with this mess smoothly enough.

“Have Bano in shopping duty, he will be carrying all of our bags for a month for this, and remind me to ground Keith for being lazy” she asked Ulaz.

“finally read those? Yeah I’m not too worried about that, but I heard that guy had some connections to one of the prince’s aides, any specific you want to deal with that? Or we will just let Griffith blow some hot air?”

“that man is lucky I let him live, let him shout if he seems to get out of line just give him a scare”

“as you wish madam” with that, both of them went back to work, Krolia now preparing for the headache that the prince would be if he decided that this was good enough of a reason to start causing noise. Despite the premise of trouble soon she was a bit happy, Keith was taking his job seriously enough to act fast even if he was still being trained to succeed her, he just needed to be taught to be more discreet. It was also a good idea to spend a few minutes looking into David Griffith’s future, to know how the vampire prince of Arus would act next.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henare Garret was lying on his bed after school, tired as a corpse. He was soooooo not ready for another day of school tomorrow, much less for what was coming now, his parents had prepared a small meeting with one of their friends at the local magic library. Usually he would be ecstatic to go to the library but the reason they were going tonight made him worried, scared, nervous and even more worried.

The entire meeting was just to get an explanation about the arbiters and how this city works, not a big deal right? Well, yeah it wasn’t a big deal but if that chat revealed that they broke a big rule or something they may be in trouble, hell they may be already in trouble and someone was watching him, a spy looking at his every move…… maybe they bugged his room or even worse, the house’s kitchen! His kitchen may not be a safe space anymore, and if the kitchen wasn’t safe then what place was safe anymore?! Nowhere!!

At least he wouldn’t be there alone, Pidge had asked them to let her family come and Lance decided to join in and bring his sister, so at least the gang would be together when mud hits the fan. The gang, it felt super weird to think of them like that, they had known each other now for one week, but like they had survived a demon together and now they were keeping an eye out for each other in case something happened, so it still felt kind of right to think of them as a group, at least out of necessity. Even with them around he wasn’t completely sure it would go well, if what Pidge’s dad had said is true, they just made someone disappear without thinking about it twice and that was terrifying.

He looked at the clock on the stand next to his bed, 7 p.m. one hour until the meeting so they would be leaving shortly, Hunk decided to get ready for the trip, taking a quick bath and getting dressed in comfortable cargo jeans, green vest and yellow shirt, not forgetting his trusty bandana. Once he was ready Henare went downstairs to see if everyone was ready, there he saw his mom had just finished conjuring a small familiar, a cat and was explaining to him everything about how to put his little brother and sister to sleep.

Once everything was ready his mom double checked his attire, forced him to take a sweater along too, and with that they left the house and got into the car. First they were to go to Lance’s home and pick him and his sister up. The drive was short and his friend was already waiting for them alongside a young woman, she looked to be in her mid-20s, sharp features like Lance’s, grey and obviously caring and determined eyes covered by glasses, short, wavy hair that barely reaches her shoulders. She was wearing a black blouse with white cuffs at the end, blue jeans that hugged her legs firmly and a blue scarf.

“thanks for picking us up Mr and Mrs Garret” she said as soon as they parked the car in front of the two.

“haha no problem, and there is no need to be so formal call me Victor” Hunk’s father said as he opened the door to let them into the car’s back sit with him.

“I am Anahera, you can call me Ana if you want” his mother continued introducing herself.

“and I am Hunk, pleasure to meet you” he said shaking hands with her.

“Veronica, really thanks for letting us join in this meeting, this city is driving me nuts since this idiot” she slapped Lance’s back jokingly “got into a fight”

“well hopefully we can put our worries to rest tonight, now buckle your belts we need to go get the Holts” his father said.

The drive to the Holt home was a bit longer than to Lance’s and was filled with some calming small talk between them, it was nice to just have a nice chat with nice people, but also was really reassuring having his parents as well as an adult werewolf so close, and when they got Katie and her family they would also have four vampires with them, no matter how crazy and strong the arbiters were, they couldn’t possibly take on such a big group of cryptids right? Right?!

He decided to focus on the conversation with the others during the trip until they got to the Holts, there they exchanged some greetings and apparently his parents already knew Pidge’s mother “she comes often with this strange but nice lady” they explained, the Holt family got into their own car and began tailing them as they drove towards one of the local magic libraries.

Moving forward they passed Haken street and Altea high, continuing through the central park reaching finally an apartment complex, hidden between alleyways. Now the name ‘magic library’ would make you think that they probably worked in actual libraries, and while the buildings had quite a few, actual libraries were a bit too public for their activities. This particular library took the place of the entire apartment complex, parking in front of the building and getting off the cars the group moved towards the entrance of the building.

Hunk’s mother knocked twice on the door while speaking a small chant, thin blue lines appeared forming magic circles, covering the entire door with runes before banishing “let’s go in” his mother said pushing the door open revealing an open space inside, artificial light coming from a ceiling at least 30 meters’ high, around them trees and even grass, bookshelves floating as familiars and mages alike moved through the building, in the distance the stairs leading for then other floors. Yes, this was the real look of a magic library, basically a big magical university campus.

“Ana, Victor! Over here” a blond woman of pale skin, he hair long and reaching her waist, with blue eyes called to them as she approached “so glad to see you, oh and I guess this is Hunk” she said pinching his cheeks “I haven’t seen you since you had 3”

“he-hello miss” he managed to get out through the pinching

“oh please don’t be so formal, just call me aunt Aina”

“now now, no need to embarrass the boy in front of his friends” Mr. Holt said making his presence known “I’m Samuel by the way”

The introductions afterwards were swift and Aina lead them to a room in the second floor, a small study room with a central round table covered in books, scrolls and maps laid out for them to see, behind the table there was a holographic display in case they were needed to explain the situation to them, Hunk assumed. Everyone took a sit at the table as Aina began talking

“ok so first thing first, what do you know? And what is that situation that has you all worried” Aina asked, Matt explained their meeting with the demon and their rescue by Brown and the others, Samuel mentioned his concerns after learning the owner of the blood bank that scammed him simply disappeared in one day. Aside from that everyone told her what they had heard about the arbiters.

“ok I understand, I think you guys have a good grasp of the general situation” Aina looked over them, clicking a button the holographic display opened and showcased a document, a set of rules and accords under the name of the Voltron treaty.

“the arbiters are indeed something akin to a supernatural police, they are the organization that enforces the Voltron treaties, they are also the group that made everyone sign the Voltron treaties” she began “that being said, they are not as trigger happy nor as like wide spread as you think, they aren’t like the police that you can find a couple of them in a donut shop or if they are, they are way more discreet than that”

“ok so what are those treaties exactly, like something to keeps them in power?” Lance asked.

“not really, the treaties are mostly to avoid conflict and keep a somewhat peaceful coexistence between factions and species as well as keeping the masquerade up without much more trouble” Aina answered “a free supply of blood for vampires so they don’t hunt, specific regulations on where mage can perform rituals, mineral supply for earth elementals, hunting permits for the werewolf packs to go hunting deer and other animals and, heaven zones where any kind of conflict is prohibited that kind of stuff is what the treaties do”

“what happens when you break the treaties?” Samuel continued.

“yeah, we are not sure, most people that break a small rule are usually just are given a scare and a warning, but when something is more serious people may just disappear”

“not ominous at all” Veronica mentioned. “any reports of deaths?”

“if people die they keep it on the down low” Aina motioned with her hand, waving it close to her hip trying to punctuate the words.

“do they deal with witnesses in a similar manner?” it was Katie’s turn to ask questions.

“not really, most witnesses are simply asked to keep up the masquerade when they are one of us, if they are normal people as far as we are aware they usually bring them here to us for a nice session of memory alteration” the blond woman pointed up to the third floor where they probably performed that kind of ritual, memory magic was complicated and a bit dangerous if not performed correctly so usually it was limited to make people believe the stuff they saw was just a dream

“so are the kids safe?” Colleen asked, in Hunk’s opinion, the most important question of all.

“oh absolutely, by their recount of the events they are probably model citizens in the eyes of the arbiters” Aina said with a comforting smile “and don’t worry about surveillance, knowing them, they already forgot you even exist”

Everyone let a sigh of relief escape their lips as soon as they heard the words, it was nice to have confirmation that they would be ok, no more need to sleep with an eye open at nights, which by the way, Hunk wanted to note it was a horrible way to sleep and kept you awake most of the time. But something was weird about Aina’s words ‘knowing them’ she sounded awfully familiar with them.

“h- hey miss Aina, you sound like you know them well, h-have you worked with them or something?” Hunk asked.

“oh yes, from time to time, while they are the authority sometimes members of each faction aid in investigations and dealing with troubles, again we are the group that is in charge of modifying the memories of normal people that learn of our existence” she pointed to one of the rules in the treaties mentioning the duties each faction would take upon to keep peace. “the other factions used to just kill said normal people before that”

“ok, so far they honestly sound like good guys, why is everyone so wary and scared of them?” Veronica finally asked what was probably on everyone’s minds.

Well the answer to that question was a two-hour resume of the events leading to the signing of the treaties, Hunk had forgotten the habit of most mages to over explain and go into tangents, now the resume of the resume was that, in short, there were two reasons why the arbiters were seen with suspicion first: their first appearance in the city which consisted on an allegedly unprovoked raid by a group of masked men in glowing purple and black armour at the Calum theatre, the vampire court’s former headquarters, allegedly because no one actually knows what happened before that attack but the reasons behind it were discussed during the signing of the treaties but that information is classified.

After the raid a series of attacks all across the vampire territory were carried out, this attacks ended on an assault at the local prince’s home, which yikes, yeah explained why people didn’t like them. While the battle with the vampires was still going the werewolf packs decided to take the chance and join in, hoping to wipe out the court and the new guys in town, it didn’t work.

From what Aina had explained they put up one hell of a fight and had a chance to come out on top, until the second wave came in, now a small army in white and blue armour and masks came and started to beat the crap out of the packs so hard they called for help from other cities, still got their asses handed to them, and well it cascaded from there. Every faction big or small decided to try and take advantage of the battle between “Monochrome” as they were known at the time and, well, everyone else.

It became a free for all until everyone was pressed against the wall, the result was that when Monochrome offered them to sign for peace or else they would continue fighting and make their best to take everyone down with them if needed, everyone of course accepted before being annihilated by either the arbiters or other factions, and that is how the Voltron treaties were signed and a kind of stable peace was formed, it just took a massive underworld war that almost wiped out every cryptid in the city and many other out of the city.

The obvious next question was, why in the names of the ancestors, the sun, the stars and anything under them was everyone so willing to die for this city?!!

The answer? Quintessence ley lanes, mana rivers, dragon veins, they had many names but basically this city was on top of one of the biggest congruence points of magical energy in the world and that made a lot of stuff make so much sense now. Having that much quintessence just in the air made magic so much easier if you knew how to harness it, and not only for magical rituals, blood magic, strengthening werewolf generations and healing abilities, vampire enhancing, elementals loved these areas to just absorb quintessence and keep their bodies going, elves worked with the materials of this areas far better than with many others, this city was a gold mine for magical research!

The rest of the night went by with more talks about the general situation and if they should like report to them or something, and Aina telling them everything she knew about Monochrome/Arbiters, and while a lot of the night passed with her assuring them that they would probably never see the arbiters again and that made him feel way more calmed, deep inside he felt sad. Yeah he had spent most of that week, worried and afraid for his life but a part of him wanted to see them again, at least bake them a proper thank you cake, chat some more with Brown, try to get red to stop being grumpy and ask about Blue and Pink’s magic. The prospect of not being able to do that anymore at all, for some reason was…sad.


	6. Night flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and it's finally out, i'm sorry for the wait, still getting into the rythm of things with this and classes. hopefully i'll be able to make a real schedule for this some day. hope you guys enjoy!

Keith was **NOT** having a good time, why? Well there was a big assortment of reasons first of all, he was working on his day off because Artuk and his team went off to dine at some back alley restaurant and got food poisoning, all of them, because the fools didn’t check if the meat wasn’t rotting or something. So Keith and his team had to cover for them.

Second: of course the world chose this night to go out of its way to make his night worse, more of those morons in purple robes were summoning monsters in the city, on the bright side according to Ulaz and his investigation team this people may be part of a druid circle, so at least there was progress there.

Third: right now he and his team were dealing with a very big, very angry, very fast gargoyle, which was also a very annoying kind of enemy. Dealing with flying targets was always a pain, especially if they were smart enough to avoid Romelle’s magic (their only real way to attack an airborne enemy without leaving damages on the ground that would be hard to cover up) after being affected by it once, which this bastard was, to be fair it wasn’t that hard you just need to stay out of the frame of her camera. So now they had to find another way to deal with this creature as it escaped through the city.

The team had come up with quite a nice plan, split up running on the roofs of the city to try to herd this creature in the direction of a nearby park where Romelle would be hiding for an ambush, as they went about it, everyone took some knives from Keith’s prodigiously large collection that he carried at almost every moment and would be trying to chip of the monster’s wings to force it low enough and to go slow enough that Romelle would have an easier time catching it on frame and bringing it to the ground for everyone to finally kill it. A plan that was mostly working, they did manage to force it in the direction of the park. Which lead him to the fourth reason he was having a bad night.

“Why are you hanging of its legs?!!” Allura’s voice came from the com system in his hood with panic and worry.

Fourth: at this very moment Keith was hanging from the gargoyle’s legs, a 50 meter (164 ft) fall below him the closest roof where he could land on to was about 5 maybe 6 meters to either side of him and he did not have a way to do lateral movement in the air so he was kind of stuck. His arms were also starting to get tired, at least the night breeze was nice.

“it came down to attack me and I took the chance to jump on it and stab the monster” he summarized the events leading to his current situation, the monster getting tired of Keith’s knives and occasional fireball when he was sure it would not catch anyone’s attention decided to change its course and charge down at Keith, who in kind chose not to evade the attack but come meet it half way marmorite blade in hand aiming to block the attack and proceed to stab it in one swift motion.

His attack was effective and the blade found its target on the side of the monster’s stomach, the problem came after the blade was at least half way into the body. The monster’s stone muscles tensed trapping the blade into his body and while marmorite could cut almost anything being gripped with stone muscles made it so that Keith couldn’t force it deeper or dislodge it from the body. Throwing its weight into a tackle the gargoyle pushed Keith towards the edge of the roof, hoping to make him fall to a probable death one he would have met had he not grabbed on to the beast as soon as his feet stop touching the roof.

“and you just chose to hitch a ride with him?!” this time was Romelle’s voice what came from the coms.

“at least I can lead it to the park this way” he retorted swinging his legs back and forth a bit before pushing them with all his strength and weight diagonally, forcing the creature down and to the side making the gargoyle turn around one corner taking them closer to the park.

“Just hold on thigh, I’m closing in your location” Allura mentioned, her voice interrupted by heavy breathings as she ran as fast as she could, from the distance Keith could see her approach using her staff as a pole for jumping across the roofs.

“just follow the plan I will be fine” as if the gargoyle understood his words the monster pushed through the weight and the injury and raised another 10 mts (30ft) to the sky, looking down and grinning almost mocking him as the beast trashed and kicked trying to make him fall, that became reason five why he was having a shitty night.

Holding thigh and he himself kicking and forcing the creature in the direction he wishes to go, it became a war of attrition between them, who would give up faster on their goal, sadly the gargoyle had gravity on its side and the monster knew it. From the corner of his eye he saw a flash of pink and black accompanied by Allura’s voice

“ok I’m here, lead it closer to the building and drop, I will catch you!” Allura ran on top of the roof next to them.

Keith looked forward, taking in the area and remembering this part of the city’s layout, another two streets ahead, one turn to left, after that it was a straight past a magic library to Central park… his eyes narrowed, they were too close and he could still drive this thing a bit and direct it there from here, maybe even force it closer to the ground for Romelle to catch it in the range of her magic.

“not yet! Follow the plan!” he said letting go of the creature with his left hand and forcing himself up enough to try to grip the hilt of the blade sticking out of the monster. On the other hand, the gargoyle decided to take the chance and kick him even harder making the one hand he had gripping the creature’s leg slip a bit. Keith felt a void in his stomach as he almost fell to the ground but managed to grip the blade and hang on regaining his hold of the leg in the process. At this point they were about to reach the intersection where he needed to make the monster turn, strengthening his hold on the hilt he prepared for the right moment.

As soon as the monster flied into the intersection Keith yanked the blade downwards in a diagonal angle, the grip of the gargoyle’s muscles still strong stopped him for gutting it as much as he would have liked but putting all his weight on that side and pressing on the injury forced the monster to the left and even downwards, they began to lose altitude, they began to lose too much altitude to be honest. Following the momentum of the forced turn the beast descended fast, letting its legs go limper, relaxed.

Focusing Keith saw his vision split, an image of him and the beast going down appeared in front of him, the monster whipped its legs with force, tired of Keith’s existence and using the force of their descent to sent him flying to the ground, not entirely lethal as the future split in various more scenarios depicting various injuries of different gravities not all of them lethal but in all of those futures Allura stopped giving chace to heal him and that meant the monster would probably be able to get away.

Looking around for any way out of that mess his sight split again and again as more possible futures revealed themselves each a bit more blurred than the one before, how his ability manifested different futures and how likely they were to occur on their own. None of the futures he saw were all that much better that the ones before, until he laid eyes on a group of people exiting the magic library close to central park.

Analysing the group, he recognized a lot of people he knew, Katie and her friends, according to the files and his mother’s own accounts there also were their families and a blond woman he thought was called Aina or something like that. At that moment another three futures appeared that he felt were way better than all the others, future one and two were very similar: he was thrown in their direction and crashed either into Lance or Hunk’s father and whoever caught him would end up with a few broken bones, which wasn’t that bad since they, and by “they” he meant Allura, could heal the injuries after they dealt with the monster.

The one future he wanted the most was the third one but it wasn’t the most likely one, so Keith would have to hope for the best and maybe try to influence their decisions just a bit, but there wasn’t much in this situation he could do to influence the future. So he was happy even if that failed he would survive with little damage.

As the gargoyle flew closer he got ready “Pidge, Lance out of the way, Aina wind now!!” he ordered trashing with his legs throwing the monster’s aim off, towards the group and with a whip like manoeuvre the gargoyle used all the force of their decent to throw Keith in that direction, dislodging the blade from it’s side and making Keith fly like a fucking frisbee, hoping it will finally kill him. Now came the part he liked the least just wait to see what the hell came next, which as a seer infuriated him.

“Red/Keith!!” Both Allura and Katie shouted in panic, and with reason because he was the only person that knew he would survive that fall.

Thankfully his voice carried some sort of juvenile panic that was enough to tug the heartstrings of the adults in the area and sent them into action. In a matter of seconds, just like in his vision, Aina casted a spell and a strong gust of wind came towards him slowing his fall, Mr Holt and Veronica had pushed and pulled Lance, Matt and Hunk of the way, Lance grabbed onto Mr. Garret to pull him to safety too, opening a path for him as Mrs Garret was already gathering some water in her hand and shooting water bullets at the creature. Colleen stood at the end of the path opened by Mr holt and Veronica, arms opened as she got in position to catch him, like a goalie ready to catch a ball, something impressive since she was planning to do that while wearing high heels.

One small detail that had changed from his vision, for some reason Katie was standing in front of her mother in a very similar position and ready to catch him, whether it was because she didn’t notice her mother or because she ignored her or any other reason Keith in fact did not know.

The result of that action was a bit more predictable, he crashed with force into Katie who lacked the physical strength to stop his momentum, both of them flew back into Mrs. Holt who was caught off guard by her daughter suddenly stepping in front of her making it so that more than actually catching them she just slowed the rest of the momentum with her body as they pushed her back and into the ground before they continued rolling there like a skipping stone over a lake. That would hurt tomorrow.

Hunk Scrambled to his knees and quickly hit the ground under him as a magic circle appeared and the asphalt began to become smoother more like dirt instead of concrete in a direct line from him towards Keith and Katie, Keith felt the floor get a bit softer, still hurt but considering the speed at which Hunk had to affect the floor bellow him this much was damn impressive. Still painful but impressive.

Keith instinctually grabbed onto Katie and tucked her in his chest, covering her with his body as best as he could, trying to make sure his armour would absorb most of the impact and the friction from rolling on the ground this way, this fall was still better than the others he had seen in his vision especially since the worst, in heavy quotation marks, of the fall had been mitigated by the adults in the area, he just needed to hold on as they rolled on the ground.

When they finally came to a stop Pidge was on top of him, her head safely in his chest covered by his arms and only some tiny scratches in her body, for his part Keith was unbelievably thankful to Allura for modifying the team’s armour before, he would be in a whole new world of pain otherwise.

Katie pulled away rapidly, putting her hands on the ground next to Keith and looking at him, her short hair falling down her face, framing it almost perfectly, being this close he even noticed the freckles that covered her cheeks and nose and that were covered by tilted glasses almost falling off, a part of him could only think she looked beautiful, a kind of beauty that rivalled Allura’s on how real it felt like it reflected what was inside of them, and he had never thought something like that before. Not like he planned to admit that out loud to anyone ever, those thoughts would accompany him to his grave.

“are you ok? Are you injured? Are you bleeding?” Pidge bombarded him with panicked questions as she scanned him and Keith only managed to half utter the beginning of a word before the shriek of the Gargoyle flying over them, still in the direction of the park, filled his ears.

Carefully pushing Katie off, he stood up and grabbed his blade, smiling at her forgetting the mask was covering his mouth “I’m ok, I’m well enough to continue the hunt” he said before he saw the others running towards them, Pidge’s family rushing to her side. Looking behind the group he saw the pink of Allura’s armour moving close, hopefully she had come down in a safer way.

“Pink let’s go!” he said as he began running towards the park before anyone could try to stop him, Allura quickly got past the group and soon both of them were running side by side tailing the gargoyle, as they ran he looked over his shoulder and shouted at them “Thanks for the help!”

“Target on route, it will be there any second Romelle” Allura reported to everyone on the coms

“copy that, closing from the front of the monster I’ll force it into the park” Shay informed

“understood, I’m in position once it is in range I’ll bring it down” Romelle continued “and Keith you are dead when this is over, you suicidal yupper”

“just focus on the mission ok? Besides I had it under control” Keith looked to his side asking Allura for some help with his sister, only to receive a glare.

“we **will** have a **very** serious talk after this you hear me?” apparently that was all the help he was likely to receive from Allura, he sighed and decided to follow his own advice and focus on the mission, the scolding awaiting him would be the sixth reason he was having a terrible night.

“yeah are you insane or something?” Pidge’s voice came from his side, the turn his head made was so quick the whiplash almost broke his spine, looking to his right, there was Katie running with them, Allura was as surprised as him when she looked at the girl

“what are you doing here? Go back”

“we are your backup!” she said smiling

“we don’t need any bac- what do you mean we?!” Keith looked back at the now rapidly approaching group behind them

“this is not a game pidge, it’s dangerous”

“don’t worry I’ll keep you safe, promise” Katie smiled in his direction with mischief. Prompting Red to chuckle and look at her.

“my hero in shining green armour” he smirked “now please go to a safe place” Keith frowned saying that

“as you wish my suicidal prince” she did not leave just matched their pace better.

Pink audibly cleared her throat looking at him with a raised eyebrow “we appreciate the help but you really should stay somewhere safe” Pink tried to convince her to go back.

“Don’t worry if we all are together we will all be ok” Matt shouted from behind, the group finally catching up to them much to Keith’s disappointment “strength in numbers and all that”

“this is too dangerous for civilians, please stand back”

“no way, we are not running away” Lance said

Growling Keith shook his head “we don’t have time for this, Pink get them off our back”

“on it” she reached for one of her pockets bringing out something yellow that resembled a hand grenade much for everyone’s worries, taking off the pin she threw it in the air and began to run even faster, Keith had an idea of what that may be, so he kicked the ground with force and ran as fast as he could when the grenade blew up into a rain of yellow liquid with an anticlimactic *pop*, sadly Katie picked up on the situation and made sure to keep up with them.

The liquid fell on the ground and on the people following, covering part of them and the ground, the soles of their shoes getting stuck on the yellow liquid on the ground as it began to solidify, same for the rest of their bodies, keith’s assumption was right, you know if anyone had told him that magical super glue could be useful before Allura made that thing he would have laughed in their faces.

“what the hell is this?!” he heard Lance shout as the liquid became sticky and glued his body together, same for the rest of the group.

“don’t worry it will disappear soon, stay there!” Allura explained before looking at Katie “I suppose we can’t convince you to go back and stay with your friends?”

“absolutely not, I refuse to be a damsel in distress again, I’m helping”

“ok screw it, you can come” Keith gave up “we don’t have time for this discussion, just stay close and don’t get in the way”

Katie nodded and the new team moved.

* * *

“screw it, you can come” Katie heard Red say and she smiled, good, ok she got a chance to pay them back for saving them from the balgura and she was not going to miss it, Pidge had the hope that everyone else would be able to help but the pair of masked teens were adamant about not letting civilians join if they could help it, which is why she made sure they couldn’t get rid of her.

When the park was in view Katie saw Brown shooting at the gargoyle some spikes of rock, various of the spikes were dodged but Brown managed to aim one well enough as to pierce one of the wings, making it stay close to the ground and forcing it to change course again and head inside the three filled area, there wasn’t as much as a word when they met up, just a nod and everyone rushed inside the park keeping the pressure on the monster. Katie assume they were talking using some sort of communications systems inside their masks.

“what’s the plan?” she asked

“we keep it on route to the centre of the park, Blue uses her magic, it falls to the ground, we keep it there and we beat it till it dies” Red shoved some throwing knives in hers and pink’s hands before he threw more blades at the Gargoyle.

“why not use more of that yellow stuff?” she said bumbling to throw one of the knives.

“we tried, it’s not as easy as hitting your friends” Pink explained grabbing some knives and throwing them at the creature.

“we are almost there” Brown warned when Katie looked past the monster, they were about to reach the centre of the park, a small plaza with stone floor, surrounded by lampposts. There was a fountain in the centre of the plaza and by the time they reached the plaza the gargoyle was flying over it and raising in altitude. Katie got ready to throw all the knives she was given at it when a flash of light came from the top of one of the trees shrouding the gargoyle, once the flash was gone a thin film of blue light covered the creature, stopping its movements as if frozen in the air making it fall rapidly to the ground at the other side of the mountain about 10 meters away from them.

As the creature hit the ground the blue light disappeared, it didn’t last long much to Katie’s disappointment but it was long enough for everyone to act. A giant hand made of stone grew out of the floor as Brown held her hands to the ground, the stone appendage coming down on the beast as it scrambled away barely avoiding being pinned to the floor and making it closer to the lampposts surrounding the area.

Red and Pink had already began approaching as the gargoyle tried to take flight close to the lampposts, Pidge was not going to allow that thing to escape, running to the closest lamppost she brought her data-pad from her pocket and her hands began to be covered in the mist for her technomancy, connecting through the lamppost to the electric system in the area she forced the electric current to be redirected to the lamps sending everything towards the closest lamp to the monster, overcharging the lamp caused it to burst with energy and light for a second, too bright to be honest turning it into a flashbang as the bulb exploded and disrupting the monster’s route making it hit the lamppost, a super charged metal lamppost, the electricity running through it’s body made it scream in pain until gravity made it fall towards the floor.

As it felt Pink reached the creature and grabbed it by the leg using an incredible amount of force to hurl it towards the stone arm Brown was controlling, the hand caught it easily and closing its fist, slammed into the ground. Finally, Red approached the captured beast, raising his blade, this time he had time to aim his attack, bringing his blade down he pierced the gargoyle’s throat, twisting his sword to finally decapitate it.

Once the creature was dead Katie saw Pink move towards Red, they exchanged a few quiet words she couldn’t make out and the staff wielding girl looked him over with care. Seeing the girl fuzz over her friend was kind of adorable, Pink moved her hand up and under the boy’s hood, caressing his cheek as a light blue glow appeared in her hand, the same she had used to heal Matt and Lance.

The scene should have been heart-warming, two friends, maybe more than friends, sharing a tender moment after a dangerous night mission, so Katie didn’t understand why she was frowning and the adorable scene made her so uncharacteristically annoyed as it did, she couldn’t stop frowning at the sight and she didn’t understand why, it couldn’t be jealousy she barely knew Red, even if she enjoyed the warmth that wrapped around her when he was around, kind of the same warmth she felt when Keith sat next to her in class, the thought put a small smile on her face before the frown came back.

After an awkward amount of time looking at them she had come to the conclusion that her displeasure came from the idea that Red fought while needing treatment and him not letting her help when he first fell from the sky and not from the novel like moment he and Pink were sharing at the moment. Pidge decided to stop staring at the pair and turned around, for a moment she saw that blue was looking at the pair with the same frown she had sported seconds before, she was about to move closer to the camera girl when shouting was heard.

“man that was cold!” Lance’s voice came from behind Katie, as she turned she saw Matt, Lance and Hunk coming towards them, they had loosed their shoes and some layers of clothing but where still decently dressed with exception of matt who was fully dressed, turning into mist sure was convenient. “why did you guys leave us behind?!”

The masked group looked at them and as the stone arm once again became part of the ground they approached “we apologize for that, the adhesive will dissolve on its own in about 10 minutes, you’ll be able to recover your clothes in perfect state then but we could not allow civilians to get involved in dangerous situations” Pink apologized as soon as they were close enough to chat.

“even if some civilians don’t get the message” Red looked at her

“oh like you didn’t want my help Mr. falling from the sky” she frowned “to begin with why the hell were you hanging of that thing?!”

“don’t change the sub-” he began before blue smacked him in the back of the head and pink turned to him

“no, don’t you dare change the subject, why in the name of all the ancestors did you think that was a good idea?” Blue put her hands on her hips, letting the camera hang from her neck.

“I’m with them, that was dangerous and irresponsible, were not for their help you could have been seriously hurt” Pink joined the brawl and was on the ‘red did something stupid’ side.

“come on guys, let’s calm down, everyone is safe isn’t it? And we are making a horrible second impression” Brown tried to settle things down.

“can we at least not do this in front of the civilians are here?”

“can you stop talking like we are not here?” Matt said annoyed, prompting them to look at him, blue gave red a look that said this discussion wasn’t over, but the mood calmed down for the moment.

“in any case, please thank your parents for the assistance and rest assured that we will take care of things here” Pink spoke as Red signalled for them to go back to the adults.

“oh not going to escort us this time?” Lance said wiggling his eyebrows, trying to appear seductive.

“there is no need for that this time, your parents are super close” Blue explained before entering a contemplative silence.

“so-so just to check you guys won’t be spying on us, or kidnapping us or anything right? We can just be friends right?” Hunk asked nervously

“what? No, of course we won’t hurt you, our job is to keep you safe” Brown moved forward to try and reassure Hunk.

“ok so friends right?” he said when everyone started looking to the side

“we can’t be your friends or anything of that sort, you know, secret society and all, but don’t worry no murder attempts we promise” Brown continued.

“yeah we shouldn’t have let you get this involved to begin with” Red crossed his arm “we will try to not get you into any more messes from now on”

“oooor since you guys seem kind of worried with us doing something to you or your families, why not get involved all the way” Blue mentioned raising a finger in a eureka moment

The masked group turned towards her, red’s head moved so fast Katie was worried he would break his spine and jeez she could feel the glare he was giving the petite girl in blue and black armour that was still looking as confident as before.

“you cannot be suggesting what I think you are, right?” he said.

“I’m with Red here, that’s dangerous for all sides” Brown continued.

“I’m afraid I think so too, besides we don’t even know they would consider it” finally Pink joined them

Katie, tired of them talking like they were ghosts moved in between of Blue and the group “ok what are you talking about?”

“nothi-“

“that you all should join us!” Blue shouted over Red looking at them excited.

“WHAT?!” they all shouted in unison

“exactly what I said, if you all are so worried about us being secretly evil and doing bad stuff why not just join and see what we do first hand?”

“because it’s not safe” Pink argued.

“they survived a fight with the barlgura” she countered.

“team work is a really important skill; we don’t know if they can work just with anyone” Brown said

“they worked together that day and Pidge did just fine with us”

“yeah but look at Hunk, he is shaking here and the fight already ended” it was Red’s turn to argue “no offence Hunk”

“look I’m not saying we should shove them in a bag and take them back to base so they join, I mean we could do that but it’s not what I’m suggesting” Blue explained ignoring the looks Lance and the other were giving her “I’m just offering them a way to get to know us better and we could get some help with our stuff”

When Pidge was about to ask what they needed so much help with, that Blue was even recruiting them, she heard everyone’s parent’s voices came from behind them. Turning to where the voices came from it seemed that they were getting close. Katie returned her gaze to the masked group who exchanged some annoyed looks.

Pink sighed and rubbed her temples for a second “while I do not agree with just recruiting people, now that the offer has been made” she looked at them as she walked next to blue, Brown and Red following “if you ever wish to continue with this conversation, go to Altea high at night, preferably sometime this weekend”

“Kids here you are!” Katie’s dad made it to the plaza followed by the other adults

“hit it” Red ordered and Blue raised her camera, pointing it at everyone else, a flash of light came and she felt herself being blinded like if she just looked directly at the sun for minutes. Katie heard the groans and complains of everyone around her as she rubbed her eyes, when she was finally able to see again Red and his team had disappeared, no trace of them left.

“where did they go?” Hunk asked

“I hear them run as soon as the flash hit us” Lance pointed out.

“I think they went north” veronica added.

After that her parents scolded her and they all talked of the events that had transpired, Katie managed to convince the others to keep the recruitment offer a secret from their families, at least for now. After checking no one had seen any of this and the Gargoyle’s corpse disappeared just like the body of the barlgura had done before, everyone went back to the cars, splitting just as before in each vehicle, going home to rest and think of the offer. Tomorrow would be a long day; thank the ancestors it was a weekend.

* * *

“this is the life!” Shay heard Romelle say as she leaned back on her chair, drinking from her ice cream soda, she wore white summer dress with pink and blue flowers printed in the skirt, golden sandals with a few gems embedded and her blond hair styled in her usual twin tails, as well as her elongated elf ears in full display. Shay, Romelle and Allura were currently in the porch looking at the gardens of the Kogane mansion, Allura and Shay visiting their friends.

“glad to see you enjoying yourself” Allura said relaxing next to her while drinking from a glass of iced tea, she was wearing a short, light pink dress that stopped a few centimetres above her knees, over it she wore a red jacket, to finish the attire she had pink heels, not too high ones though and as Romelle her elven ears were undisguised “I hope Keith and Bandor can come join us soon”

“Keith is talking to Kolivan and mom about recruiting Hunk and his friends right?” Shay asked looking at Romelle who was still drinking from her ice cream soda.

“and Bandor has to take classes during the weekend because his teacher couldn’t make it to one of their classes” Romelle explained leaning on one of the chair’s arms.

“shouldn’t you be with Keith then? It was your idea to recruit them”

“I explained my reasons to Keith and he agreed, after some convincing” she said the final part in a lower tone “so he’ll be fine and this is more leader job than mine” Allura was already opening her mouth to protest that idea when Romelle continued “besides with Bandor locked in the classroom with his teacher someone had to come entertain the guests” Romelle looked at shay and then at Allura, her gaze lingering on the chocolate elf who had changed her focus to her drink and didn’t notice.

Shay accepted the answer, not like she would get anything better and she already had an idea why Romelle had decided to dump the job of preparing the recruitment on Keith when they were visiting. Shay couldn’t resist the urge to roll her eyes. Thinking of Keith lead to thoughts of the invitation to recruit the others, she understood the general reasons she had given, Hunk and his friends had a lot of potential, the raise of events and those druids summoning demons all around the city were getting hard to handle so more people could help and after what happened to team Alpha they really needed to start strengthening their ranks but a part of her thought Romelle had also a personal reason for that.

Team Alpha, the thought filled her with sadness, the team had follow one of the few druids that survived a demon summoning in an attempt to locate their base of operation, it didn’t work well, they manage to locate one location where they were gathering but the team was discovered and attacked by a powerful devil they identified as Zendak, the team was slaughtered with only one survivor, their friend Shiro. Sadly, not even Shiro made it out ok from that, the devil took his right arm and last time they visited he was still resting after that encounter a month ago.

Shaking those thoughts Shay decided to focus on enjoying the day, Shiro had told them to try and relax too since the work would get harder and she was not one to ignore his advice, it was one of the reasons why they decided to meet at the Kogane home, it was practically impossible for anyone to see them there so they didn’t need to keep up their disguises, which meant that instead of the tanned girl she usually looked like, her skin was covered in stone and rocks showing her elemental nature. She wasn’t wearing a dress but black shorts and a sleeveless blouse yellow, as well as sneakers. One would say she was underdressed but reality was that everyone else was just trying to impress someone.

She took a bite of one of the crackers with her iced coffee when over her the panels covering the ceiling of the porch light up, emanating a blue light towards them, Shay felt energy fill her body as the familiar feel of quintessence being sent towards her enveloped her, then the door leading inside the mansion opened revealing a slim young man, of visibly delicate complexion, his face had a smile but he looked tired, with curly brown hair reaching his neck, blue eyes and marks under his eyes like the one’s Romelle had, he wore a red and blue shirt with jeans, behind the door she could see the same panels in the ceiling emanating energy towards the boy.

“freedom!!” he said and moved towards them sitting between Romelle and her.

“done with class?” she asked

“yeah, now I can join you guys” Bandor rested in the chair “oh I passed by Keith’s room on the way, he will be done soon”

“oh then I’ll go get ready something for him to drink” Allura said getting up “something you want too Bandor?”

“you don’t need to do that you know? We can just ask one of the cooks to prepare it” Romelle pointed.

“there is no need to bother them they are working hard already and besides it’s just cherry lemonade” Allura said walking inside, shay gave a small prayer for the safety of that kitchen, Allura may be a great alchemist and fighter but was a…. peculiar cook.

On the other side of the table a disappointed Romelle let her head hit the table and rest there “you know sis, for someone that openly advertises how unattainable Allura is, it is admirable that you haven’t given up” Bandor said patting her back.

“it would help if you backed me up”

“nope, I’m not getting involved in this mess, besides you left him in the middle of a meeting on Saturday he deserves a lemonade” Bandor explained

“You do know that may kill him right?” Shay interjected.

“it takes more than that to kill Keith”

“anyway, leaving the lesbian train wreck over there alone, how have you been Bandor?” she decided to ignore Romelle who was still hitting her head on the table for the moment and address the new arrival.

“bored to death, there is only so much you can do inside of this house” Bandor said looking at her “so I’m glad you guys came”

Bandor’s permanent confinement to the Kogane household was well known to all members of the student council, it was the entire reason Marmora and the Koganes came to Arus, his peculiar condition made it so his body needed of a constant injection of quintessence to survive, quintessence that was extracted from the giant quintessence ley lane under the city and dispersed all around the house to give Bandor some freedom while feeding him the vital energy. It was also the reason they tended to meet here and not outside, that way they all could have fun.

“I would have imagined that alchemist training would keep you busy enough”

“I can’t survive on that; the most interesting thing so far has been learning to make the same glue as Allura” Bandor looked to his sister “that and watching my dear sister get ignored by her crush”

“UGHH!!” Romelle let her head hit the table again.

“you are going to cause brain damage that way” Shay just sipped her drink.

“I don’t care anymore”

“you should, you are already mad enough” Keith’s voice came from behind the door as he opened it “seriously not even Allura’s healing will fix you if you keep going”

“hahahaha” a monotonous mock of a laugh came from Romelle as she raised her head “good to see the council of old people didn’t steal your humour”

“that wouldn’t be a concern if you were there with me” Keith took a sit next to Shay to the side of Allura’s chair “also don’t go close to the kitchen I saw smoke come from there”

“but she is making lemonade why is there smoke?” Shay was a bit dumbfounded, she knew Allura’s cooking wasn’t normal but she couldn’t find an explanation why making a cold cherry lemonade would produce smoke.

“your guess is as good as mine” the raven hair boy shrugged “so what was that about a crush?”

Romelle’s back got stiff as she looked around “nothing, nothing at all”

“you know you can tell me right?” Keith said raising an eyebrow “I’m not like those brothers from tv that would murder anyone for daring to date their sister you know; I could even help”

The three of them just looked deadpan at him, it was technically ok since he didn’t know the situation but it still felt rather out of place that he offered to help when, at least to Romelle, he was more or less 70% of the problem here, that and as handsome as he was his love experience amounted to saying yes or no to whoever tried to woo him not trying himself to get in a relationship.

“no need, I have everything under control” Romelle simply shook her head.

“if you say so” Keith looked at the door expectantly.

“just remember that when you have your heart broken, your brothers will be there for you to cry on” Bandor said with a grin, shay could almost hear the laughing fit he was biting back.

They talked a few more minutes about some random stuff until the doors opened again revealing a smiling Allura holding a tray with a cherry lemonade, a glass of iced coffee and some sandwiches “I’m back and I made some delicious sandwiches for everyone” she set the tray on the table, and put the lemonade in front of Keith “how did the meeting go?”

“you know you didn’t have to right? We could have asked the cooks” Keith said grabbing one of the sandwiches “you are our guest after all”

“it’s fine, we can’t depend on the staff all the time and it was a good chance to practice new recipes”

Everyone else looked at the food, not sure if they should try it, food made by Allura was always a gamble she cooked with the mind set of someone practicing alchemy which meant it was more of a mad science than just making food, sometimes it could be great, others it could send you to the hospital.

Keith took a bite of the food and his drink “oh this is pretty good, thanks Allura” he took another bite and continued “well they accepted; if they want to join they can but we are going to have to deal with their training and getting them up to speed”

“that’s going to be a lot of work” Shay was already thinking of how overworked they would be with that added to their duties alongside the usual missions and all the student council work, ancestors and the club activities! This would be hell.

“yeah, that’s why we are leaving it to Romelle” Keith said drinking his lemonade.

“what?! Wait a minute this is a team job why am I doing it alone!”

“you did invite them without consulting us, I think this is fair” Shay agreed with Keith, she didn’t really want to push all the work on her but a bit of teasing was something she needed.

“come on guys, no need to be like that” Allura said and turned to Romelle holding her hand causing her to smile brightly “don’t worry, I’m sure Coran will lend you some of his old fitness holovids you’ll be fine” Romelle’s head fell in disappointment, they continued teasing her for a while, laughing a bit just relaxing there.

“so, you guys really think they will join?” Shay decided to ask when everyone was a bit calmer.

“who knows” Bandor said “you didn’t go about it properly, basically just blurted it out of the blue after they had a couple of meetings with demons, which granted is impressive, doesn’t mean they are warrior material”

“I don’t think Hunk will be joining us, he seemed very scared last time” Shay agreed eating one of the sandwiches, it had been enough time if they were just secretly lethal Keith would have reacted already.

“I did enough digging, I dig into every student that could be interesting” Romelle grabbed one too and took a bite “which is not illegal if the police don’t learn about it Shay” she said pre-emptively when Shay was about to make that comment.

“I think those siblings will come, they want knowledge and they seem the kind of people that would risk their lives for the answers to a math test they don’t know” Romelle continued “honestly is better if we get a hold of them before some cult or evil company goes offering to help them with that and getting them in their evil schemes” An ironic statement coming from someone whose mother and brother had an assassin on speed dial.

“what about the other guy? Lance right?” Bandor said drinking from his iced coffee.

“he is kind of outgoing, so he may just go with the flow if the siblings join” Allura mused.

“whatever it is, we will have to wait to see” Keith finally spoke.

“you could try to see what happens it would save us time” Shay suggested, she was really not looking forward to staying up late and them not turning up.

“I could, but I won’t, just enjoy the surprise”

“so you do know what will happen” Allura raised an eyebrow looking at him.

“not telling”

“you really can be stubborn with the strangest of things” the dark skinned woman rolled her eyes with a smile, shay wasn’t as amused as Allura with the answer but she knew they wouldn’t get more out of him, they would have to wait until tonight, or tomorrow’s night but for now, she would just relax and talk with her friends.

Later that night, they were sitting in the student’s council room in a similar arrangement to the one from before; the biggest changes being Bandor’s absence and everyone else wearing their suits of armour and looking at the one television in the room, watching the camera feed of the entrance they were just as relaxed but they were waiting, waiting for the recruits, some would ask why the armour? Well they still had to put on a show for them, after all even if they joined, first came a placing test for them.

From the edge of the camera, slowly a group appeared, two siblings wearing green and brown, a tan slender teen and a giant boy in yellow t-shirt, Shay smiled at the others and caught a grin from Keith, then everyone grinned just like him and nodded, putting on their masks they stood up.

It was show time.


End file.
